"Oh, it's true! I'm not romancing. When I said good-bye to you in that Lambeth bedroom, I meant it to be a good-bye. I went on board that boat with the full intention of making a hole in the water."
"Dick! Dick! Don't say it!"
"I do say it. I say it emphatically. Life didn't seem worth the living to me. Masters shared my cabin; nursed me; tended me; made me see things differently. In fact, made a man of me. When I think of him, and all he did for me, I cry from my heart: God bless him! God bless him!"
He turned his head that she might not see the tears filling his eyes; continued:
"When I think of the debt I owe him, a debt I would pay with my life cheerfully if it would help him, I—I—I——"
She interrupted him; was standing close to him again, white-faced, dry-eyed, breathing heavily.
"Dick! Dick!" she gasped. "You don't know how you are hurting me!"
"And I bring him here," he spluttered, "to your home. Because it was the only place I could bring him to; because I thought my sister loved me, that she would stretch out a warm hand of welcome to the man who saved me. What happens? What happens? She doesn't throw the plates and dishes at him, but, by God! I wish she had! It would have been better than the cold, cutting, contemptuous nature of her insults!"
He struggled to get free from her arms; they had found their way round his neck, and her head was on his bosom. But she held him too tightly. He was unfair; she knew it; not all the wrong was on her side.
"You think nothing of me, Dick!" Her sobbing expostulation: "You ignore the things he has done; the way he has behaved to me!"