She had grown into a necessity to him. Though were she twice as beautiful, he would never have paid her the dangerous honor of a second glance under ordinary conditions, but their life together on the island and his rivalry with Harrigan for her sake had made her infinitely dear to him.
Seeing the opportunity to destroy all her respect for Harrigan, he schemed instantly to betray his word to Hovey. Like Harrigan earlier in the day, he had no purpose to reveal the planned mutiny at once. The Irishman waited because he did not know to whom he could confide the dangerous information; McTee delayed in the hope of nipping insurrection in the bud at the very instant when it was about to flower. It would be far more spectacular. Moreover, he saw in this a manner of enlisting Kate on his side.
Shortly before four bells in the afternoon he went to her cabin and knocked at the door. When she opened it to him, she stood with one hand upon the knob, blocking the way and waiting silently for an explanation of his coming. That quiet coldness banished from his mind the speech which he had prepared.
He said at last: "Kate, I want you to talk with me for a few minutes."
She considered him seriously—without fear, but with such a deep distrust that he was startled. He had not dreamed that matters had progressed as far as that. At length she stepped back, and without a word beckoned him to come inside. He entered and then his eyes raised and met her glance with such a deep, still yearning that she was startled. No woman can see the revelation of a man's love without being moved to the heart.
She said: "You are in trouble, Angus?"
The hunger of his eyes came full in her face.
"Aye, trouble."
"And you have come to me—" she asked; and before she could finish her sentence, McTee broke in, pleadingly:
"For help."