In reality, when Mr. Travers had glanced at Miss Schuyler, after the announcement made by Mr. Burke of his engagement, he thought she looked a trifle pale, but then there is such a peculiar light when the African sun comes down into a Moorish garden through the waving palms that one gets strange impressions.
Miss Schuyler was very silent on her way to the beach, and Travers did not see her again till morning, when he crossed on the yacht to Gibraltar. During the night a sense of all he had lost flashed upon him; he could see no way out of it. He was a man who prided himself upon keeping his word; that word was given to Miss Burke, whom he liked and respected, but whom he now knew he did not love. And he had allowed himself to drift on through two happy weeks, devoting himself to this stranger, who in return must certainly despise him for his cowardice. Distinctly, it was an awkward position. He felt confident that, given his freedom, he might win the woman of his choice, for she was the kind of woman to inspire him to do his best, and Bob Travers’ best was very good indeed, but his freedom was just what he could not ask for, so he finally decided to tell Miss Schuyler the exact truth, and thus at least feel he had her respect.
On the yacht he told her his story, and she listened, as a woman listens who has had many disillusionments, and accepts them as necessities.
He thought her very cold when she only said:
“We have been very good friends, Mr. Travers. It will be enough to tell you first that I should have preferred to hear of your plans from your own lips. It all seemed so natural in Tangier, so far from the conventional outside world, that I allowed myself to give way to impulses which I thought under perfect discipline.”
“But you must know, you shall know, that my heart is yours, that you are my ideal woman, the one I should have married,” Travers earnestly pleaded.
“If that is so, let it encourage you to be strong. Go back, marry your little girl, and forget one who has suffered too much to judge anyone.” Then Travers went down the side of the yacht into a small boat, and could only say “God bless you” over her extended hand before the steps were pulled up, and the yacht steamed out on her way to Malaga.
A few days after at Marseilles the papers were brought on board, and an article in them instantly attracted their attention. It graphically described a fatal accident that had befallen Robert MacNeil Travers, who had just landed from a yacht at Gibraltar evidently in perfect health. He had gone up to the summit of the rock, and stood at the edge of its dangerous eastern face. His companion, the American Consul at Tangier, had stopped a moment to look out to sea with his glass, and when he turned round poor Travers had disappeared, “probably seized with vertigo,” the paper said; for Mr. Travers was heir to a large estate, and about to be married to the sister of the celebrated artist, Boardman Burke, so no idea of suicide was entertained.
Who shall say whether Miss Schuyler believed this newspaper version? Perhaps she remembered Travers’ last impassioned word, “You shall know my heart is yours,” and he had taken this way, the only possible way, to show her his devotion without being dishonourable.