"But you will, perhaps? Why haven't you?"
"I'm too old, and—I cared too much for you."
The tears were running down her face now; she loosed his hand to wipe them away.
"Don't say I've ruined your life," she pleaded; "don't say that! My own—yes; my own—it served me right! but I've tried so hard to believe that you had got over it. When I read of your election, and then that you were made Solicitor-General, I was glad, ever so glad. I thought, 'He's successful; he has his career.' I've always wanted to believe that your work was enough—that you had forgotten. It wasn't so?"
"No, it wasn't so. I did my best to forget you, but I couldn't."
"Aunt Lydia said you weren't cut up at all when she saw you. You deceived her very well. 'A worthless woman,' you called me; I 'wasn't any loss'! It was quite true; but I knew you couldn't feel like that—not so soon. 'Worthless'! I've heard it every day since she told me.... I meant to do my duty when I married you, George; if I could have foreseen——" She broke off, coughing. "If I could have foreseen what the end would be, I'd have killed myself rather than become your wife. I was always grateful to you; you were always good to me—and I only brought you shame."
"Not 'only,'" he said; "you gave me happiness first, Mamie—the greatest happiness I've known. I loved you, and you came to me. You never understood how much I did love you—I think that was the trouble."
"'There's a word that says it all: I worship you'! do you remember saying that? You said it in the train when you first proposed to me. I refused you then—why did I ever give way!... How different everything would be now! You 'worshipped' me, and I——"
Her voice trailed off, and once more only the pounding of the engine broke the stillness on the deck. The ocean swelled darkly under a starless sky, and he sat beside her staring into space. In the steerage someone played "Robin Adair" on a fiddle. A drizzle began to fall, to blow in upon them. Heriot became conscious of it with a start.
"You must go below," he said; "it's raining."