"The admiral chooses a strange messenger," he added. "I cannot say if this be regular or no. His handwriting is unfamiliar to me. I do not recognize this; you say you had it from him, madam?"
Elizabeth could not trust herself to speak; she only bowed. There was evidently something very suspicious to the captain in the whole proceeding. The signature did not seem just right.
"Ah! I have it--Major Coventry!" he cried suddenly.
That miserable young man, sick at heart, had shrunk into the background since Elizabeth had come aboard, and the girl had not seen him before. He had felt that his work was done when she appeared; but, no, he was to find out that his troubles had but just begun.
"Oh!" she cried, as he stepped forward, clutching him wildly by the arm, a look of terror in her eyes, as she added, in a whisper, "not you--I had forgotten you--we are lost!" In the bitter knowledge that she had forgotten him, he overlooked the clue to her action furnished by her last words.
"Here is a reprieve from the admiral," said the captain. "It seems to be correct, and yet--will you look over it and give me your opinion? you are familiar with his writing, at any rate. My Lady, forgive the questioning, but the matter is most serious, and I must be absolutely assured."
"Here is the paper, Edward," said Elizabeth, desperately, taking it from the captain's outstretched hand. "Is not that the writing of the admiral?" she added entreatingly, and then clasping her hands, she looked at him with all her soul in her eyes and waited, full of apprehension. A word, and he hanged her lover, and incidentally, but surely, killed her; a word, and he set them free! What the consequences to himself of his decision might be, with the sublime egotism of love for another, she neither knew nor questioned. Coventry gave a brief glance at the document; he saw what was expected of him; his life or her happiness trembled in the balance; true to his determination, he did not hesitate a moment. In that glance of a single second he realized the truth, which he had more than suspected before.
"It is," he replied briefly and indifferently aloud. A little prayer to God for forgiveness leaped within his heart at the falsehood. He had connived at her deceit, failed in his soldierly duty, broken his honor--for this woman. The reputation of a lifetime of loyal service to his king, the honorable record of years of devotion to duty had been thrown away in a moment for her. He had sacrificed more than life itself for his love--and she loved another! He turned the paper over in his hand and then quietly returned it to the captain. He said no other word, he scarcely even looked at Elizabeth. He could not trust his own gaze. There might be reproach in it. And he would fain make the sacrifice like a gentleman at least.
"Thank God--thank God--" whispered Elizabeth, under her breath; and the look of gratitude she flashed at him would have gone far to repay even a greater sacrifice--perhaps.
The keen captain was not yet satisfied, however.