“I am very glad that Mr. Stoughton did not sail,” she said, more to herself than to Fenton. It was strange how much the salt air had done to restore the color to her face and the light of contentment to her eyes. “She—that is Mrs. Percy-Bartlett, you know—is coming over to us at once.”
There was silence for a time. As they looked down at the surging waters, the strange coincidence that had thrown them together again seemed to them both to take on a supernatural character.
“You were going away without bidding me good-by,” she said in a low voice. Her eyes met his reproachfully.
“You do me an injustice,” he returned. “I wrote to you this morning.”
She turned from him, and her eyes sought the horizon. She felt that his words had placed her in an embarrassing position. She could not ask him what his letter said; but she longed to know.
They stood without speaking for some time. He was gazing at her clear-cut profile, and, as he looked, the scruples that had led him to make a great renunciation for her sake seemed to him at that moment to be strained and illogical. Had he not made every sacrifice on the altar of his Quixotic creed? And had not fate rendered his efforts futile? Surely he and Gertrude Van Vleck would not be standing together on the deck of an ocean steamer, outward bound, if the stars in their courses had not ordained that he should tell her what was in his heart.
“I wish,” he said at length, “that you would do me a favor.”
She turned to him with a puzzled smile on her face.
“Promise me,” he continued earnestly, “that, if the letter I sent to you this morning ever comes to your hand, you will destroy it unopened.”
The smile died away from her face. He saw that he had placed himself in the position of being misunderstood. What could he do but explain himself? His face was pale with emotion, and he grasped the rail nervously.