On giving utterance to the ill-understood speech, Helen Armstrong imprints a kiss upon her sister’s cheek, at the same time bedewing it with her tears. For she is now weeping—convulsively sobbing.
Returning the kiss, Jessie looks not a little perplexed. She can neither comprehend the meaning of the words, nor the strange tone of their utterance. Equally is she at a loss to account for the trembling throughout her sister’s frame, continued while their bosoms stay in contact.
Helen gives her no time to ask questions.
“Go in!” she says, spinning the other round, and pushing her towards the door of the state-room. Then, attuning her voice to cheerfulness, she adds:—
“In, and set the game of vingt-un going. I’ll join you by the time you’ve got the cards shuffled.”
Jessie, glad to see her sister in spirits unusually gleeful, makes no protest, but glides towards the cabin door.
Soon as her back is turned, Helen once more faces round to the river, again taking stand by the guard-rail. The wheel still goes round, its paddles beating the water into bubbles, and casting the crimson-white spray afar over the surface of the stream.
But now, she has no thought of flinging herself into the seething swirl, though she means to do so with something else.
“Before the game of vingt-un begins,” she says in soliloquy, “I’ve got a pack of cards to be dealt out here—among them a knave.”
While speaking, she draws forth a bundle of letters—evidently old ones—tied in a bit of blue ribbon. One after another, she drags them free of the fastening—just as if dealing out cards. Each, as it comes clear, is rent right across the middle, and tossed disdainfully into the stream.