"If you think you owe me anything," I said, "then don't tell your wife anything about me. Don't tell her where I am or what my name is now."
"I won't tell her or anybody else where you are or what your name is, but I will tell her how you saved my life."
I never saw him again. I heard they gave him a shore billet when he was discharged from the hospital; I heard, too, that within a year he was retired on a pension. But that he was dead—I never knew that till you told me to-night.
Killorin had come to a full stop.
Carlin recalled the last time he had seen Meagher—when they both knew he had not long to live. "She has been a wonderful wife to me. Not much happiness I have had that she has not made for me," Meagher had said.
"I don't doubt he told her of my going over the side after him in the gale—he wasn't a man to lie," said Killorin.
"He told her," said Carlin. "And he told me something more. That night you passed them on the steps he had proposed to her. He thought she was going to say yes. She had stuck his rose into her hair and was about to say the word—so he thought—and then you came by. And it was six years again before she said the word. If you had not left home——"
"Thank God," said Killorin, "I left home! Thank God on her account. The consuming pride—it had to burn itself out in me."
It was still dark night, but ahead of the ship a cluster of pale yellow lights could be seen.
"Veracruz?" asked Carlin.