The thought had struck V. Vivian, and shot him down, that this girl was lying, deliberately suppressing the truth that meant more than life to Dal. She hadn't screamed. Dal hadn't known she was upset.... Yet was it thinkable? In the fiercest denouncing of the yellowest Huns, who had ever dreamed anything so base of them as this? Lying? With that face like all the angels, that voice like a heavenly choir?...
The tall doctor saw that his suspicion was unworthy and absurd. His was no simple choice between his friend's shameful cowardice, and this girl's criminal falsehood. No, Dal was crazy-drunk at the time, and himself cried out in his misery that the worst that they said of him was probably true. And even supposing that this girl was no more than a fiend in seraphic shape, what conceivable reason could she have for such infamous suppression? Motive was unimaginable.... No, the fault must be his own. He had pressed too hard, pried too tactlessly and inquisitively, not made her understand sufficiently the dire swiftness of the poor boy's need....
These two stood face to face. Carlisle saw that Jack Dalhousie's friend was becoming excited; but then, so was she. The man spoke first, in a low, hurried voice:
"I don't mean to catechise--indeed, I don't. You must try to forgive me for the liberties I seem to be taking.... The thing's so serious, so pitiful. This story already flying around back in town--making him a base coward--he'll never live it down. And it's to-night or never, a--a misstatement travels so fast and far, and has so long a life--"
"You should have reminded him of all this," said Carlisle, her rounded breast rising and falling, "before he got into my boat."
"Oh, you have a right to say that! He's been wrong, insanely wrong! But does he deserve disgrace--ostracism--ruin? You alone stand between him and--"
"I don't feel that it--it's right for me to be brought into it further. I've explained that. And I must ask--"
"But you are in it already, you see. Whatever anybody does or leaves undone, now and for the future--you are in it...."
The enemy paused, gazing at her; and then suddenly, before she could make just the right opening to go past him, he abandoned restraint, and flung himself upon entreaties.
"Couldn't you make a statement--just a little statement--saying that you feel certain he didn't know the boat was upset? that perhaps in the excitement you forgot to scream?--that you know he wouldn't have left you if he'd understood you were in trouble? Couldn't you at least give him the benefit of the doubt?--say or do something to show you've no bitter feeling toward him?--"