"There is nothing to forgive, darling. It was altogether my fault. I wanted to sympathise with you, and I did it in my usual clumsy fashion. It is you who must forgive me."
She still hung her head. Suddenly she raised it and looked him in the face.
"Some day you will hate and despise me, I know. You will curse my name. But before God to-night I swear that—that—that——No, I can't say it. It must go through eternity unsaid, one little word unspoken."
"Dear girl, do you know what you are saying? Don't you think you had better go to bed?"
Without another word she rose and went down the veranda to her room. He sat like a man dazed, turning and twisting her behaviour this way and that in an endeavour to pierce the cloud that seemed to be settling on him. What did she mean by her last speech? What was to be the upshot of all these vague allusions? What was it she had intended to say, and then thought better of? He racked his brains for a solution of the problem, but without success. He could hit on nothing feasible. In a state of perfect bewilderment he went across to the hut and spent a miserable night, only to find at breakfast next morning that she had quite recovered and was her old self once more.
After that night Murkard might be considered convalescent. Like a shadow of the man he used to be, he managed to creep out into the sunshine of the beach, to sit there for hours every day. The bout had been a severe one, and it would be some time before he could be himself again. All this time Ellison allowed no word of reproach to fall from his lips, nor did Murkard offer any apology. But there was a wistfulness in his eyes when they lighted on the other that told a tale of gratitude and of devotion that was plainer than anything words could have uttered. On the third morning of his convalescence he was sitting in his usual spot just below the headland, looking across the blue straits dotted here and there with the sails of luggers, and at the white roofs of the township, when he heard steps approaching. The pedestrian, whoever he might be, was evidently in merry pin, for he was whistling a gay chanson, and seemed to be in the best conceit, not only with himself, but with all the world. Turning the corner, he came directly upon Murkard, who looked up full and fair into his face. It was Merton. If the latter seemed surprised, the effect upon Murkard was doubly so. His eyes almost started from his head, his mouth opened, and his jaw dropped, his colour became ashen in its pallor.
"You—you here!" he cried. "Oh, my God! Is this a horrible dream? I thought you were dead long since."
The other was also a little pale, but he managed to laugh with a pretence of merriment.
"My dear boy, this is the most delightful surprise I have ever experienced. I hope you're not sorry to see me. May I sit down? Well, what a funny thing this is, to be sure. To think that we should meet like this, and here of all places in the world. You've been seriously ill, I'm sorry to hear."
"How long have you been in this place?"