Captain Francis Newcombe smiled at the upturned, serious face.
"Quite, Polly! Quite!" he answered earnestly. "Very fully, I might say. It must be very hard indeed on Miss Marlin. I am so sorry for her. I wish there were something we might do. Your being here must have been a blessing to her."
The colour stole into Polly Wickes' cheeks.
"Guardy, you're a dear!" she whispered.
"Am I?" he said—and took possession of her hand.
What a soft, cool little palm it was! What an entrancing little figure! Who would have dreamed that Polly would develop into so lovely—no, not lovely—damn it, she was divine! Polly and a half million! Why Locke? Curse Locke! The eyes and lips of a dream woman, he had said; a half million—both his for the taking! Did he ask still more? He was not so sure about Locke having her. No, it wasn't the night drugging his senses and steeping his soul in fanciful possession of desires. It was real. If it pleased him, he had only to take, to drink his fill to satiation of this goblet of the gods. There was nothing to stay him. He had builded for it, and he was entitled to it; it wasn't chance. Chance! There was strange laughter in his heart. Chance was the playground of fools! Why shouldn't he laugh, aye, and boastingly! Who was to deny him what he would; this woman if he wanted her, the—
He stood suddenly like a man dazed and stunned. He let fall the girl's hand. Was he mad, insane, his mind unbalanced; was reason gone? It had come out of the night, a mocking thing, a voice that jeered and rocked with wild mirth.
His eyes met Polly's. She was frightened, startled; her face had gone a little white.
Imagination? As he had imagined that night in his cabin on board ship? A voice of his own creation? No; it came again now, jarring, crashing, jangling through the stillness of the night:
"Shadow Varne! Shadow Varne! Ha, ha! Ha, ha!" It rose and fell; now almost a scream; now hoarse with wild, untrammelled laughter. "Shadow Varne! Shadow Varne! Ha, ha! Ha, ha!" And then like a long, drawn-out eerie call: "Shad-ow Va-arne!"