"No, I know you would not; and yet I could not tell you. You will hear all about it from the others. I cannot bear to tell you. And yet—yet—don't think me quite so foolish, quite so wrong as they will say that I have been. They do not know all. I cannot tell them all. I was driven into it—and now I have to bear the punishment. My whole life is a punishment. I am miserable."
"Life can never be a mere punishment, if it is rightly led," said Vivian, in a low tone. "It is, at any rate, full of duties and they will bring happiness."
"To some, perhaps; not to me," said Kitty, raising herself from her kneeling posture and drying her eyes. "I have no duties but to look nice and make myself agreeable."
"You will find duties if you look for them. There is your husband's happiness, to begin with——"
"My husband," exclaimed Kitty, in a tone of passionate contempt that startled him. But they could say no more, for at that moment the carriage came up to the door, and, from the voices in the hall, it was plain that the family had returned.
A great hush fell upon those merry voices when Mr. Vivian's errand was made known. Mrs. Heron, who was really fond of Percival, was inconsolable, and retired to her own room with the little boys and the baby to weep for him in peace. Mr. Heron, Kitty, and Elizabeth remained with Rupert in the study, listening to the short account which he gave of the wreck of the Arizona, as he had learnt it from Mason's lips. And then it was proposed that Mason should be summoned to tell his own story.
Mason's eyes rested at once upon Elizabeth with a look of respectful admiration. He told his story with a rough, plain eloquence which more than once brought tears to the listeners' eyes; and he dwelt at some length on the presence of mind and cheery courage which Mr. Heron had shown during the few minutes between the striking of the ship and her going down. "Just as bold as a lion, ladies and gentlemen; helping every poor soul along, and never thinking of himself. They told fine tales of one of the men we took aboard from the Falcon; but Mr. Heron beat him and all of us, I'm sure."
"You took on board someone from the Falcon?" said Elizabeth, suddenly.
"Yes, ma'am, three men that were picked up in an open boat, where they had been for five days and nights; the Falcon having been burnt to the water's edge, and very few of the crew saved."
Elizabeth's hands clasped themselves a little more tightly, but she suffered no sign of emotion to escape her.