There was no one on deck but the pilot, the watch, and the one passenger who had just come on board. All the rest, even the boat’s crew, had turned in.
Harcourt sat in the stern of the steamer, with his eyes fixed on the dark water beneath.
The wrench of his parting with Roma lacerated his heart; the thought of his treachery toward her tortured his conscience. Was there a criminal on earth so black as he? Was there a soul in hell so miserable?
What would Roma think of him when she should come to know his deed? Truly “a deed without a name,” that no law had ever forbidden, because no man or devil had ever dreamed of it!
He loathed himself and his life as he loathed death and putrefaction.
And yet it seemed to him that all he had done and all he had suffered was the work of unforeseen, irresistible destiny. He had never intended to do wrong. He had never thought it possible for him to commit one dishonorable act. He had aspired to live a perfectly upright and honorable life; to be a credit to the aged and widowed mother who had lost all on earth but him, and whose hopes in age and sorrow were centered on him; to be worthy of the noble girl who had given him her priceless heart, in his poverty and privation.
He had labored and suffered to gain an education and a profession; he had denied himself not only all the pleasures of youth, but all the comforts of life; he had worn himself out with toil and want to this end!
Then he had gone to the Isle of Storms as hotel clerk, not only to get up his strength in the bracing sea air and better living of the seaside resort, but to earn money enough to pay for his last college course.
Ah! If he could have foreseen the end of his fatal sojourn there!
He was lured into the downward path without seeing whither he was going. He was expected to be polite and obliging to the guests of the house, and he was willing and anxious to be so.