A week had passed before Viola reappeared among the passengers. Her mother explained to kind inquirers that she had remained on deck quite too late one night and had caught a chill. The doctor bore out her unimaginative explanation of the girl’s absence, and added that it was much easier than most people suspected to catch a chill south of the Line. When Viola was at last permitted to come on deck she received many tokens of the interest which her fellow-passengers had in her progress toward recovery.
It was not until the evening of her first day out of her cabin that Somers contrived to get a word or two with her alone.
He was asking after her health when she turned upon him suddenly, saying—
“Mr Somers, it was you who threw Jack overboard!”
“Good God!” he cried, starting back from her. “For heaven’s sake, Viola, do not say so monstrous a thing! What!—I—Jack———-”
“You did it,” she said firmly.
“My dear child, how on earth have you got hold of such a notion?” he asked her.
“It was revealed to me that night—the night before I broke down,” she replied. “I had been sitting alone in my deck chair, and I was at the point of going below, when there—there on the poop at the side of the wheel astern, the whole dreadful scene was revealed to me. I tell you that I saw it all—Jack and you: I was not sure at first that the second figure was you, but I know now that it was you. I saw Jack turn round and lean against the rail, and that was the moment when you sprang at him.”
The man took some steps away from her.
He took off his hat and wiped his forehead. He returned to her in a few moments, and said—