"Why have you come back to torture me?" she exclaimed. "You said it was forever. You cast me off, when I cried, and tried to keep you. You said I'd never see you again."
"I was a fool, Madge."
"Then accept the consequences, and leave me alone."
"And if I can't——"
She looked him squarely in the eyes. "I am Joe's wife," she said.
"Madge," he said, "I am not trying to defend myself. I'm throwing myself on your mercy. I'm begging you, on my knees, for what I threw away. I——"
"You've broken my heart," she said; "why should I mind if you break yours?"
"Madge," he cried, "in ten minutes we can be aboard the Northern Light and under weigh; in an hour we can be outside the reef; in two, and this cursed island will sink forever behind us, and no one here will ever see us again or know whither we have gone. Let us follow the gale, and push into new seas, among new people—Tahiti, Marquesas, the Pearl Islands—where we shall win back our lost happiness, and find our love only the stronger for what we've suffered."
She pointed to the windward sky. "I think I know the port we'd make," she said.