That Jones might rush to the railway station, she knew. But instead of a reconciliation there might be a quarrel. There might be an arrest. She concluded that she would post Sam’s letter at one of the stations at which the train would stop while on the way to Culebra; by the time he received it she would have been already married. She went out and posted Mackenzie’s letter, called on a friend to discuss the scene of the preceding night, and returned home to find Samuel waiting for her.
He was much earlier than usual. The truth is, he was still very much frightened and wished to run no further risks with vigilant policemen. He had opinions to express, and he sought the security of his own dwelling to give utterance to them; Susan gathered from his remarks that he would very much like to hoist the standard of revolution in the Republic of Panama, summoning thereto all the West Indians who suffered under the tyranny of the laws. A Jamaican named Preston had many years before been prominently identified with a revolutionary movement in this same country. All Jamaica had rung with his name. Jones’s idea was annexation; Panama should be taken by West Indians for the British Crown, the Protestant religion should be firmly established, the natives, and especially that portion of them attached to the Police Force, should be put in their proper places. Sir Henry Morgan had once burnt the old city of Panama. And Sir Henry had done it with men from Jamaica. “If that could be done in the old days,” said Jones, “we could do more now that we are stronger. A couple of English man-o’-war would soon show them a thing or two!”
But presently he was assailed by doubts as to the part the British Government would consent to play in such a laudable enterprise. He was not sure that England was alive to her opportunities in this part of the world. He confided his misgivings to Susan, who saw in his ambitions clear evidence of a desire for further trouble. But she quietly agreed with everything he said, which pleased him immensely. He noticed too that she did not even remotely approach again the perilous question of marriage. She seemed to accept the existing situation as permanent. In an outburst of confidence he passed from Imperialistic aspirations to her own affairs, and told her how he had been accosted by an old woman on the night before leaving Kingston, who had warned him about her and Tom Wooley.
“That was Mother Smith,” said Susan. “She wanted to injure me.”
“But she has not accomplished her purpose,” he graciously replied; “an’ between you and I an’ the door, I sorry I make a fool of myself last night over a little fellow like Tom Wooley. The fact is, I was drunk. I know you wouldn’t leave Samuel Josiah for anybody here: love me too much! An’ nothing anybody say will make me leave you.”
That closed the conversation. He did not notice that Susan said nothing in answer to these remarks.
Friday night came, the last she was to pass under that roof. Something unusual happened. After dinner, Jones announced that he was not going out, and for an instant she wondered, startled, if he had any inkling of her plans. But her mind was soon at ease. Samuel had not recovered from the effects of those few hours in gaol. He had received a lesson; he did not wish for a repetition. He drank nothing: drinking was largely a matter of show and bravado with him. He had purchased some Jamaica newspapers that day, and diligently read the news while she sat idle, thinking of the plan she would carry out in the morning. Even his views on the annexation of Panama were not mentioned.
Saturday morning came. Had Jones been an observant man he might have noticed that Susan was unusually nervous, and that she bade him “good-bye” when he was going out to work. She watched him go, then hastily made her final preparations. She packed all the things she needed into a trunk and a straw “grip,” ran downstairs, summoned a cab, had her trunk brought down, and gave the key of her apartment to a neighbour, whom she asked to hand it to Samuel when he should come home that afternoon. Then she drove to the railway station at Christobal, half-fearing, half-wishing that Jones might see her. In a few minutes she had passed through the iron gates of the station and had taken her seat in a second-class carriage of the train.
She was conscious now of a strange sensation somewhere about her heart. There was a tightening there; there was a lump in her throat; the inclination was strong upon her to quit the train, to turn back, to leave marriage and Mackenzie alone. She was nervous, excited, but she did not feel happy. In a vague kind of way she realized that she was cutting herself off from the past, entering a new life. . . .