Mrs. McNab and I paid another visit to the Island on the fourth night, taking a fresh supply of food. We found our refugee in a distinctly bad temper, loneliness and lack of tobacco being his principal grievances. He became rather more cheerful when we supplied the latter need, but muttered angrily when he learned that no letter had yet been received from his friend in Adelaide. “A man can’t stay on this beastly rock for ever!” I heard him say. “I’ll be in a pretty fix if Transom slips me up, after all.”
“You do not think he will, Ronald?” Mrs. McNab’s voice was sharp with anxiety.
“Oh, I don’t know. He seemed anxious enough to get me in with him, if I could raise a little money—but he could easily find somebody with more than I shall have. I’ll believe in him when I hear from him—and the letter should have come before now. For goodness’ sake come back as soon as you can, Marie; waiting in suspense in this hole is enough to send a man out of his mind!” He stood glowering at us as we left the Island. To my relief, he had not spoken to me at all.
I think that the doubt he put into Mrs. McNab’s mind about the friend in Adelaide was the last straw that broke down her endurance. She had made very certain of the prospect of help from this man, Transom: Mr. Hull had never spoken of him, she told me, as if there were any chance that his offer would not hold good. I did not believe it now: I felt sure that Mr. Hull had only tried to worry her by expressing a doubt that he did not really feel. It was one of his pleasant little ways, that he liked to work on her feelings by dwelling on dangers, both real and imaginary: she had told me this herself, and I ventured to remind her of it now. But she shook her head.
“I do not know. He can be very cruel, but I hardly think he would be so bitter as that. It may have been that his talk of Transom and America was only a trick to induce me to raise the money—and I have raised all that I can. But if Transom fails, whatever can we do? He has been my only hope. Ronald cannot leave Australia without a passport—he dares not try to get one himself, even under a false name. And nowhere in Australia is he safe.”
There was not much that I could say to comfort her. She gripped the rail of the launch, staring out to sea as we ran smoothly homeward: seeing, I knew, all that might lie before her: bringing her brother back by stealth to his old hiding-place in the Tower rooms, to enter again upon the dreary life of concealment and deception, with the ever-present risk of discovery, and of disgrace for them all. It was a bitter prospect. She looked ten years older when she said good night to me after we got back to the house. As I listened to her dragging footsteps, going wearily up the stairs, once more I longed very heartily for a strong man to deal with Mr. Ronald Hull.
It was not a surprise to me when Julia brought me word next morning that Mrs. McNab was ill.
“I dunno is it a fever she have on her,” said the handmaiden. “She do be all trembly-like, an’ as white as a hound’s tooth. Sorra a bit has she seen of her bed lasht night; I’d say she was fearin’ that if she tried to climb that small little ladder to her room it’s fallin’ back she’d have been. A rug on the sofy is all the comfort she’s afther having.”
“Well, she can’t stay there,” I said. “Miss Carrick left yesterday, Julia: we can bring Mrs. McNab down to her room.”
“ ’Twould be as good for her,” agreed Julia. “ ’Tis all ready, miss; as warrm as it is, I’ll clap a hot bottle between the sheets, the way she wouldn’t feel the chill. Let you go up to her now, for the poor soul’s unaisy till she sees you. Herself sets terrible store by you these days.”