"Must I shame myself to justify myself?" she cries recklessly. "I was happy in his company because he was your friend, and because he loved you. I was happy in his company because he spoke of you, and because--Joshua, have pity on me and forgive me! O my heart, my heart!"
He catches her fainting form, for she is falling. Weeping, she turns her face from him and hides it in her hair. Soft breezes play among the branches of the trees, stirring them into worshipping motion, and the more-pork, with its sad-colored plumage, flits by on noiseless wings, uttering his melancholy note. Joshua waits until Minnie is more composed; presently her sobs grow fainter and she leaves the shelter of his arm, and stands a little apart from him, with her face still averted.
"I do pity you," he then says, "and forgive you. What I have said and what I have done springs from no feeling of unkindness to you, Minnie. God knows, in such a strait as ours, such a feeling would be worse than cruel. But there are certain things of which I am afraid you are ignorant, that I must speak of and that you must hear. Do you know that, before I left home, I was suspected of playing with your feelings--of making love to you clandestinely, and so betraying the friend whom I would have laid down my life to serve?"
"No, no Joshua, do not tell me that!"
"It is the truth; but I did not know it until after I had bidden good-by to mother and father and Dan, in Stepney. Where were you on that day?"
"I--I was not at home," she falters.
"You had left, then. I went to your father's room to wish you and him good-by. He refused to see me. I asked to see you, and Susan told me you were asleep. I was deeply grieved; and I can understand now what caused Susan to beg me imploringly to be true to Ellen. What a cowardly villain they must believe me to be! Your father suspected me; Susan suspected me. If I had died that Christmas night at mother's door, it would have been happier for me! Minnie I thanked you once for saving my life; but I cannot thank you now, for you have made me the unhappiest of men."
She does not answer him, but stands before him trembling and suffering, as before a judge, enduring her punishment and admitting the justice of it.
"It is part of my unhappiness," he continues, "that I have to speak thus to you; it is part of my unhappiness that I have to show you the consequences of your rash conduct. Listen: To-day I saw the Lascar; he came behind me stealthily, to kill me, I believe; but I turned and saw him in time. I could have shot him dead where he stood; indeed, some savage prompting urged me to do so, but I held my hand and was spared the crime. This man hates me, Minnie. In an encounter I had with him before I first went to sea, I struck him and hurt him. He has had a bitter revenge upon me. He saw you on board the 'Merry Andrew' before the pilot left the ship, and recognized you, despite your disguise."
Minnie holds her breath. She remembers how the Lascar whispered her name in her ear the first day she went aboard.