“But Monsieur de Bourbon knows of these doubts,” went on the Marquis. “They have even touched his own mind, I know that. But he has continued to fight undaunted. He has made sacrifices—any looking at his face can see that. It was not in France that he looked for happiness, but elsewhere. He was not heart-whole—I who have seen him with the most beautiful women in France paying court to him know that. But this sacrifice, also, he made for the sake of France. Or perhaps some woman of whom we know nothing stepped back and bade him go forward alone, for the sake of his own greatness—who can tell?”
Again no one answered him. He had not perceived Miriam, and John Turner, with that light step which sometimes goes with a vast bulk, had placed himself between her and the firelight. Monsieur de Gemosac rose to his feet and stood looking seaward. The snow-clouds were rolling away to the west, and the moon, breaking through, was beginning to illumine the wild sky.
“Gentlemen,” said the Marquis, “they have been gone a long time?”
Captain Clubbe moved restlessly, but he made no answer. The Marquis had, of course, spoken in French, and the Captain had no use for that language.
The group round the fire had dwindled until only half a dozen remained. One after another the watchers had moved away uneasily toward the beach. The Marquis was right—the boat had been gone too long.
At last the moon broke through, and the snowy scene was almost as light as day.
John Turner was looking along the beach to the south, and one after another the watchers by the fire turned their anxious eyes in the same direction. The sea, whipped white, was bare of any wreck. “The Last Hope” of Farlingford was gone. She had broken up or rolled into deep water.
A number of men were coming up the shingle in silence. Sea Andrew, dragging his feet wearily, approached in advance of them.
“Boat’s thrown up on the beach,” he said to Captain Clubbe. “Stove in by a sea. We’ve found them.”
He stood back and the others, coming slowly into the light, deposited their burdens side by side near the fire. The Marquis, who had understood nothing, took a torch from the hand of a bystander and held it down toward the face of the man they had brought last.