"Still watching, Big Bear?" she said.
"Yes," said Merefleet.
His tone told her that he had seen nothing. She lay still for a few moments, then slowly turned her face towards the east. A deep pink glow was rising in the sky. There was a rosy dusk on the sea about them.
"My!" said Mab in a soft whisper. "Isn"t that lovely?"
Merefleet said nothing. He was watching her beautiful face with a great hunger in his heart.
Mab was also silent for a while. Presently she turned her face up to his.
"The Gate of Heaven," she said in a whisper. "Isn"t it fine?"
He did not speak.
She lifted a hand that felt like an icicle and slipped it into his.
"I guess we shall do this journey together, Big Bear," she said. "I"m real sorry I made you come if you didn"t want to."
"You needn"t be sorry," said Merefleet, with a huskiness he could not have accounted for.
"No?" she said, with a curious little thrill in her voice. "It"s real handsome of you, Big Bear. Because--you know--I ought to have died more than a year ago. But you are different. You have your life to live."
Merefleet"s hand closed tightly upon hers.
"Don"t talk like that, child!" he said. "Heaven knows your life is worth more than mine."
Mab leant her elbow on his knee and gazed thoughtfully over the far expanse of water. Merefleet knew that she was faint and exhausted, though she uttered no complaint.
"Shall I tell you a secret, Big Bear?" she said, in the hushed tone of one on the threshold of a sacred place. "I ended my life long ago. I was very miserable and Death came and offered me refuge. And it was such a safe hiding-place. I knew no one would look for me there. Only lately I have come to see that what I did was wicked. I think you helped to make me see, Big Bear. You"re so honest. And then a dreadful thing happened.
Have you ever spoilt anyone"s life besides your own, I wonder? I have.
That is why I have got to die. There is no place left for me. I gave it up. And there is someone else there now."
She stopped. Merefleet was bending over her with that in his face that might have been the reflected glory of the growing day. Mab saw it, and stretched up her other hand with a startled sob.
"Big Bear, forgive me!" she whispered. "I--didn"t--know."
A moment later she was lying on his breast, and the first golden shimmer of the morning had risen above the sea.
"I shan"t mind dying now," Mab whispered, a little later. "I was real frightened yesterday. But now--do you know?--I"m glad--glad. It"s just like sailing into Paradise, isn"t it? Are any of your people there, Big Bear?"
"Perhaps," said Merefleet.
"Won"t you be pleased to see them?" she said, with a touch of wonder at the indifference in his tone.
"I want nothing but you, my darling," he said, and his lips were on her hair.
He felt her fingers close upon his own.
"I guess it won"t matter in Heaven," she said, as though trying to convince herself of something. "My dear, shall I tell you something?
I love you with all my heart. I never knew it till to-day. And if we weren"t so near Heaven I reckon I couldn"t ever have told you."
Some time later she began to talk in a dreamy way of the Great Haven whither they were drifting. The sun was high by then and beat in a wonderful, dazzling glory on the pathless waters.
"There"s no sun There," said Mab. "But I guess it will be very bright.
And there will be crowds and crowds along the Sh.o.r.e to see us come into Port. And I"ll see my little baby among them. I told you about him, Big Bear. Finest little chap in New York City. He"ll be holding out his arms to me, just like he used. Ah! I can almost see him now. Look at his curls. Aren"t they fine? And his little angel face. There isn"t anyone like him, I guess. Everybody said he was the cutest baby in U.S. Coming, darling! Coming!"
Mab"s hands slackened from Merefleet"s clasp, and suddenly she stretched out her arms to the sky. The holiest of all earthly raptures was on her face.
Then with a sharp sigh she came to herself and turned back to Merefleet.
A piteous little smile hovered about her quivering lips.
"I guess I"ve been dreaming, Big Bear," she said. "Such a dream! Oh, such a gorgeous, heavenly dream!"
And she hid her face on his breast and burst into tears.
CHAPTER XIII
Before the sun set they were sighted by the cruiser returning to her anchorage outside the little fishing-harbour. Mab, worn out by hunger and exposure, had slipped back to her former position in the bottom of the boat. She was half asleep and seemed dazed when Merefleet told her of their approaching deliverance. But she clung fast to him when a boat from the cruiser came alongside; and he lifted her into it himself.
"By Jove, sir, you"ve had a bad time!" said a young officer in the boat.
"Thirty hours," said Merefleet briefly.
He kept his arm about the girl, though his brain swam dizzily. And Mab, consciously or unconsciously, held his hand in a tight clasp.
Merefleet felt as if she were definitely removed out of his reach when she was lifted from his hold at length, and the impression remained with him after he gained the cruiser"s deck. He met with most courteous solicitude on all sides and was soon on the high-road to recovery.
Later in the evening, when Mab also was sufficiently restored to appear on deck, the cruiser steamed into Silverstrand Harbour, and the two voyagers were landed by one of her boats, in the midst of great rejoicing on the quay.
Seton, who had long since returned from a fruitless search for tidings, was among the crowd of spectators. He said little by way of greeting, and there was considerable strain apparent in his manner towards Merefleet. He hurried his cousin back to the hotel with a haste not wholly bred of the moment"s expediency. Merefleet followed at a more leisurely pace. He made no attempt to join them, however. He had done his part. There remained no more to do. With a heavy sense of irrevocable loss he went to bed and slept the dreamless sleep of exhaustion for many hours.
The adventure was over. It had ended with a tameness that gave it an almost commonplace aspect. But Merefleet"s resolution was of stout manufacture.
The consequences of that night and day of peril involved his whole future. Merefleet recognised this and resolved to act forthwith, in defiance of Seton or any other obstacle. He did not realise till later that there was opposed to him a strength which even his will was powerless to overcome. He did not even take the possibility of this into consideration.
He was very sure of himself and confident of success when he descended late on the following morning to a solitary breakfast--sure of himself, sure of the smile of that fickle G.o.ddess Fortune--sure, thrice sure, of the woman he loved.
And he watched for her coming with a rapture that deprived him of his appet.i.te.
But Mab did not come.
Instead, Herbert Seton presently strolled into the room, greeted him, and paused by his table.
"Be good enough to join me on the terrace presently, will you?" he said abruptly.