He did not move.
“I know!” he said quietly. “I tell you I was there. She was the first woman I saw when our boat finally reached the Western Pacific and we were literally dragged on board out of the boiling sea. The instant I caught her eyes, I knew. She was standing in a sheltered corner of the deckhouse, her dark hair set with pearls of spray and her lips parted in a sort of childlike amazement. It was exactly as if I had been working over a puzzle for years and suddenly the missing bit popped up and completed it, solved it.”
I came back and sat down. I was rather astonished at my own coolness.
“Kitty Melrose was the most charming girl I ever knew,” I remarked. “Clean and fine and upstanding and willful and witching.”
Gorham suddenly brought his great palm down on the chair arm with a mighty smack.
“Of course. We both knew her. Half of us were in love with her. She never looked at any of us. She was at once our best of friends and yet aloof. And of us all but one man touched that secret spot which lies in every woman’s heart—and he went and married the McTodd girl. Nice enough, probably, and all that; but not in Harry Owen’s class nor in Kitty Melrose’s set. And Harry Owen threw away the Shearwater for Kitty’s sake.”
“But he hadn’t met her in years,” I persisted.
“Of course not!” Gorham retorted. “He was in love with her. He didn’t even dare think of her. He had tied himself up tight and fast to Sheila. You remember his marriage?”
“I was on the China coast at the time,” I growled. “I heard some queer things—which I didn’t believe.”
“Right!” was his answer. “But we’re going to get this thing straight. The world has forgotten the wreck of the Shearwater and the mystery of it. But you and I were Harry’s friends. We were Kitty’s friends. And for the sake of the two of them I’m going to tell you the truth to-night. Then we are never going to whisper so much as a word all the rest of our lives. Some people would misunderstand.”