“If him could go to-night, him would go,” she said; “but he can’t go to-night. To-morrow him may change his mind. Jones is a man that will do a thing in a temper, but not otherwise.”
Catherine’s estimate of Samuel’s character was shrewd. But it is not always possible to foresee the actions of any human being.
CHAPTER VII
WHAT HAPPENED AT CULEBRA
It was raining at Culebra—had been raining for days. For miles and miles the sky was overcast, hour after hour the rain came down, now swiftly and in showers, now in a light drizzle which gave to the surrounding country an aspect of greyness, a cheerless, depressing hue.
It was between eight and nine o’clock in the forenoon; her husband had gone to his work and Susan was busying herself with her household duties. She was pensive, moving about as one who had no energy; her mind was not set about what she was doing, her thoughts were far away.
She knew that Catherine must have told Jones on the previous night her answer to his letter: she was wondering what he had said, whether he had determined to go back to Jamaica without seeing her, whether all was over between them now. . . .
There was a knock at the front door: she went to answer it. She opened the door: on the veranda stood Samuel, the last person in the world she expected to see at Mackenzie’s house that day.
“You!” she exclaimed. “What y’u doing up here?”
She stood guarding the doorway, as if to prevent him from entering; she was trembling all over with fear, not of Jones, but lest her husband should unexpectedly return and find Samuel there.
“You not going to let me in?” asked Jones, with a note of pleading in his voice; “I have only come to have a talk with you.”