“My dear child—oh, Viola! how is it possible for you to entertain so horrible a thought? Jack Norgate—my best friend!”
“You hoped to marry me—he is your rival—you murdered him!”
Somers flung up his hands with an exclamation and hurried down to his cabin.
The next day he came to her after tiffin.
“I want to speak a word to you apart,” he said.
She went with him very far forward. Only a few passengers were on deck, and these were in their chairs astern.
“I want to confess to you,” he said in a low voice. “I want to confess to you that it was I who threw Jack Norgate overboard.”
She started and stared at him. She could not speak for some time. At last she was able to say in a whisper—
“You—you—murdered him?”
“I murdered him. The temptation came over me. Oh, Viola, you do not know how I loved you—how I love you! My God!—should do it again if I thought it would give me a chance of you.”