“I wish you joy of your woman,� he sneered.
“You will see how tame she is tomorrow,� I laughed, as he climbed up the ladder and soon disappeared.
My first instinct was to draw the hatch covers and bolt them, but I didn’t dare. In fact, Pimball himself kicked them together. I turned to the shut door of her cabin. To throw open the door was the work of a minute. There she stood. She had twisted some kind of a rope out of the sheets of her berth which she had hastily torn in strips. Her purpose was plain. She had intended to end her life by hanging herself from the hook in the deck beam above to which one end of her rope was secured; and she would have done it, too, if I had not come in in the nick of time.
I stared at her for a moment and then reached forward and tore the plaited strands out of her hand and from around her neck and threw them to the deck. It was evidence to me of the deepness of her despair that she had attempted such a thing. It showed me for one thing the excellence of my acting for I couldn’t have conceived that she would try to do away with herself if she had the slightest suspicion that I was a true man still. I had convinced even her of my villainy I realized with a sudden pang.
CHAPTER VIII
WHEREIN I MAKE ALL CLEAR TO MY LITTLE MISTRESS
HARD as I stared at her, the glance that she shot back at me matched my own. I never want to see such loathing, such contempt, such scorn on a human countenance again—much less on her sweet face. It cut me to the heart. Conscious of my own innocence of wrong and unaware of the excellence of my acting, I could not understand it for a moment. That she had so far believed my own words against her knowledge of my character and the memory of my long, devoted, faithful service, confounded me. I was appalled, paralyzed for the time being. I didn’t know what to say, how to begin an explanation. I stood there gaping like a fool. It was she who broke the silence that was becoming insupportable between us. Come to think of it, the initiative—in speech at least!—was invariably hers.
“A moment,� she said wildly, all her feeling in her voice, “and I had done it, traitor!�
“Nay,� I protested, “I am a true man.�
“You bargained for me, you bought me.�
“I was not in earnest,� I started to say, but she interrupted me in a perfect tempest of outraged feeling.