For a few minutes, Charlotte made no attempt to move. Then she gently laid him down, and without disturbing Mrs. Maclaughlin still in the deep sleep of exhaustion, dragged herself painfully to her feet. The movement dislodged the pearl, which had slipped unnoticed into her lap. She picked it up and stood looking upon it meditatively. Its luster had no sinister significance in spite of those rather revolting confessions of Kingsnorth’s about his musings over it. It was just a beautiful bauble, one of those shining gauds for which women break their hearts or with which they seek to break other women’s. It had no worth apart from human vanity. Back of all its commercial value, lay a human weakness.
She did not care for it. She said to herself that she would keep it long enough to learn the news that the boat brought her. If Martin was alive, well she knew how quickly he would repudiate the gift, how his man’s pride would revolt at her having financial independence of him. She could not but realize how utterly his own self-respect must hang on his power to work for her, to give her the things he wanted for her. Nor did she wish to repeat to him what Kingsnorth had told her. It was a confession he would not willingly have made to Collingwood; it was the woman in him crying out to the woman. But if Martin was no more, then she would accept the gift, thankful for the help it would give her, knowing well that Martin would not have grudged it.
Stiffly she made her way to the beach and shading her eyes, peered at the approaching boat. The dazzle of the sunset was in them and the boat was well out; but someone was standing, waving frantic arms at her. Her heart gave one great throb as she realized that no one but Martin would so energetically have welcomed the sight of her; and then as it came nearer and she saw him plainly, the throbs settled into steady, confident beating. Her chance had come, and would find her ready to profit.
The sea was molten metal shot with undertones of steely blue and opal; huge banks of cloud were massed on the distant horizon, the hidden sun pouring down great shafts of light; cocoanut trees were yellow green in the radiance; the worn, mouse-colored nipa roofs were turned to gold. All nature was afire with beauty and promise. Yet there in the dismantled homes lay a man’s work to his hand; and in the general devastation was written the story of wreck and of failure, the threat of toil to restore. There, too, in the full light stood a woman ready to help and to bear unflinchingly her share of the burden. Her dress was disordered; her hair, that had grayed slightly in the suffering of past weeks, had something of wildness in its untidiness. Her face was white, and would never again be youthful; but in spite of fatigue she stood erect, magnificent, a splendor of purpose in her eyes, a woman entered into her heritage, tried, self-confident, sure of herself. Though he would never know it, though he was destined to go on to the end in his fool’s paradise of indomitable ignorance, Martin Collingwood, most masculine of masculine types, who had vowed that no woman should ever rule him or patronize him, accepted, in that hour, the terms he had repudiated, and thrust his neck rapturously, for all time, beneath the yoke of petticoat government.
Collingwood and Maclaughlin were both on their feet, the one feasting his eyes on the woman he loved, the other searching with dread premonition of evil for the form dear to him. Neither at that moment gave a thought to the destruction that had overtaken what they had built, or to the tedious steps to be retraced, the effort of accomplishment to be re-done. That was for later; that was life in their sturdy acceptation of it. But just before the boat grounded they saw Charlotte lift one hand with an easy graceful movement and toss some gleaming object into the sea. They even heard the tiny splash it made, and saw the ripples. Neither gave it a second thought; it might have been a pebble picked from the beach, or some equally valueless trifle. Little did Martin dream that it was the last fagot she possessed laid upon the altar of his self-esteem.
As the boat’s keel grated on the sands, however, both men sprang out and splashed their way to her. She stood smiling clearly, steadfastly, into her husband’s eyes; and as he gathered her with a sob into his arms, Maclaughlin, obedient to her slight gesture, tore past them to the low-roofed shelter whither she motioned him. Collingwood, raising his eyes as he lifted his lips from his wife’s, saw the man’s abrupt halt and recoil; then beheld him uncover at the sight of the sleeping woman and their dead comrade.
The End
