The man opposite me cast his eyes down.
“It was so reported,” he acknowledged. “I beg of you to do as I am doing—express no opinion.” He lifted his eyes to mine. “I am not a sentimentalist. But when a fact is cast up at my feet like a bottle on the beach, I accept it. Listen:
“The Shearwater was to sail from San Francisco for San Pedro on a Friday afternoon in January. In the morning I found I had to go South and, because the steamer would land me in time for business on Monday morning, I telephoned down for passage. A few minutes before sailing time I arrived at the pier and found Sheila there, too; she was complaining bitterly about something. I pulled up and would have gone away, but she made a point of my staying, wiped her eyes, and said in a constrained way, ‘I’m going South this trip with Harry.’
“He seemed struck dumb; she went on to say she had arranged it with the port captain, and then began to fuss about the cabin. She took something from Owen’s desk and put it in a rack. It was perfectly apparent that she had never been in the cabin before. She said as much.
“Of course, Harry had to go on the bridge immediately. We sailed on the dot. When we had passed Angel Island he asked me to join him.
“‘It will be a dirty trip,’ he said to me composedly. ‘The barometer is jumping and the Shearwater is heavily laden. I wish——’
“He did not finish the sentence; but I understood that he resented Sheila’s presence on his ship, in his cabin. We passed on to other topics and so carried on our conversation till we were well abreast of Pigeon Point. It was already blowing very heavily, in squalls, and the sea was making fast. Just at dark Harry suddenly interrupted his talk to say, ‘Will you please find Sheila and see that she has her dinner? I must stay on the bridge all night.’
“So I went below and found Mrs. Owen in the cabin, seated in a big chair. She was seasick, she told me quietly, when I had given her her husband’s message. I went down and dined by myself. After dinner I rejoined Harry on the bridge. It was a very nasty night indeed, and the old Shearwater was making heavy weather of it. I stayed an hour, and during that time the Western Pacific, also southbound, overhauled us and was swallowed up in the darkness. She would reach San Pedro twelve hours ahead of us.
“At last I turned in, only to be aroused a few hours later by a quartermaster with a summons to the bridge. Harry Owen was there, sheathed in oilskins, his sou’wester pulled down over his eyes, his whole form streaming with brine.
“‘Look!’ he bawled in my ear, and I looked.