"So you didn't go to New Zealand?" said Marcella quietly, looking at him with blazing eyes. He blinked at her and tried to smile affably.
"Of course I never thought you would, you horrible, wicked, idiotic old liar!" she said.
Ole Fred looked thoroughly startled. Louis gazed at Marcella and then at him.
"Now, ole man—I pu' it to you," said Ole Fred thickly. "Is tha' the sort of talk you le' your wife use to your bes' pals?"
Louis shook his head reprovingly at her.
"Marsh-shella! Naughty lil' girl! 'Pol'gize! Good Ole Fred! Bes' pal ev' man had, Mar-shella! Going t' Newze-eeelan'! All 'lone—way from 'smother—way from Ole Country! Give him kish, ole girl—no ill-feeling—"
Ole Fred got up unsteadily, grinning, and lurched towards her muttering, "No, no ill-feeling." She realized what he was going to do, and suddenly felt that she could not live any longer. But first—her father's temper came to her for a moment and she lost all responsibility. It was the first time the Lashcairn madness had seized her—and it was not the raging Berserk fury of her father. She stood quite still, very white. Ole Fred thought she was waiting passively for his kiss. But when he reached her on his unsteady feet she caught him by the shoulders, shook what little breath he had left out of him, and slid him deliberately along the deck. He was too surprised to resist effectively and the others had no idea what was in her mind. Reaching the rail of the ship, with the strength of madness she lifted him up—he was a thin little rat of a man—and dropped him calmly overboard. There was a heavy plonk and a rush of feet as Knollys, who had watched fascinated, ran down the companion-way with another man. She looked at her hands distastefully.
"You're very foolish if you rescue him, Knollys," she said, with an air of giving impartial advice. "He's not a bit of good. I knew quite well I'd put some of these idiotic men in the sea before I'd done with them."
She turned away towards Louis again. He cowered as she came near him. She smiled at him kindly and reassuringly.
"Poor little boy! You needn't be frightened of Marcella. She doesn't often put wicked ole men in the sea," she said gently, holding out her hand to help him to his feet. Before she had put Fred in the sea she had felt it would be much better to go herself than live with Louis any more. But the flood of madness ebbed; Louis's cowering as she came near him seemed to her so appalling, so appealing that she could not leave him, and her hatred of Fred made her set her teeth and determine not to let him have Louis.