“Death,” she said. “His death; and his death be mine—the death of all that’s best in me—the death of all I kept alive for him.”
“For—for—you don’t mean your husband? Not Daniel Sweetland?”
“He was on board her. ’Twas to her he went and in her he sailed. I only heard it a thought more than a month agone. Heard it under his own hand. He wrote me a letter. And now—”
“There might be another ship of that name. But how much this means! And you could hide it all from me! And I thought—”
“You thought he was in Wall Shaft Gully. And now he lies in a bigger grave than that—my Dan—driven away to die. May God remember the man who ruined my husband!”
For once Sim was shaken from his power of ready speech; for once his tongue seemed tied. The tremendous nature of this event made him powerless. Yet at the bottom of his bewildered mind lurked joy. The thing he had toiled to bring about appeared at last accomplished without further possibility of failure. Doubt no longer existed. Sweetland was now dead indeed. He concealed his thanksgiving and began to mourn. No more of love he spake, but strove to find consolation for her in religious reflections. Dry-eyed she stared from him to the newspaper, from the newspaper back to him. Then she bade him leave her, and he went, but stopped at the publichouse hard by and told his tremendous news to Mr and Mrs Beer. They, who knew the secret of Daniel’s disappearance, were stricken with profound sorrow, and scarcely had Sim proclaimed the truth before Jane Beer hurried bare-headed from the house and ran to her friend.
“Poor young woman!” groaned Johnny in genuine grief, “what a world of up and downs and hopes and fears she have suffered, to be sure! To think as one pair of girl’s shoulders be called upon to carry such a burden. There’s nought to be done. Only time can help her; an’ maybe you.”
“To think,” said Sim, “and I was that moment putting marriage before her! Another moment and she must have told me she was a wife; and then it caught her eye—staring from the printed page—that she was a widow!”
“She told us the secret and I made a joyous rhyme about it; but what’s rhymes to her now? Yet I’ll do one, and this day I’ll do it, for many’s the poor broken heart as have sucked comfort from a well-turned verse—else why do we have hymns? Well, it will come back to you, Titus. For my part I could wish as Daniel had died to home where first we thought he did. A sea death be so open an’ gashly. For my part I’d sooner have gone down Vitifer mine shaft and know my bones would bide in the land that bred ’em.”
“Well, the mystery be all out now. No doubt he visited her that night he gave the policemen the slip. ’Twas hard I should never know the secret, for I’m sure Dan would have told me afore all the world.”