Such was the meaning of what he said, although it was not put exactly as I have here written it down; and if I confess, as I should have to do at last before the end of this story comes, that the words and the way they were spoken—spoken so vehemently and with so fixed a resolution—made me shiver and feel afraid in a way I had never done before, I hope nobody will blame me; but I am sure that being in love makes a coward of a man in many ways, and in one moment I saw myself robbed of life and love just at their fruition. I beheld myself clasping Elsie to my bosom, having won from her at last an avowal of her love, and then stabbed or shot in her arms. Ah! it was dreadful the number of fashions my mind went to work, in a quick fever of black apprehension, to foretell or foresee my own possible doom. I had never thought myself cowardly, but then I seemed to see what death meant better than I had ever done; and often the coward is what he is, as I think now, from a vivid imagination, which so many of us lack. I went out of the court in a strange whirl, for you see I had only just recovered. If I had been quite well I might have laughed instead of feeling as I did. But I did not laugh then.
Now, on the next morning the Vancouver was to leave the harbor, being then at anchor off Goat Island. All the money that was due to me I had taken, for Will had given me my discharge, and I sent home for what I had saved, being quite uncertain what I should do if I followed Elsie to British Columbia. And that night I saw the last of Will, the last I ever saw, little thinking then how his fate and mine were bound up together, nor what it was to be. Helen was with him, and I think if he had been sober or even gentle with her in his drink, she would have never spoken to me again as she did on that day when she believed that life was nearly at its end for both of us. But Will, having finished all his business, had begun to drink again, and was in a vile temper as we sat in a room at the American Exchange Hotel, where I was staying. Helen tried to prevent his drinking.
"Will," she said, in rather a hard voice from the constraint she put on herself, "you have had enough of drink, we had better go on board."
"Go on board yourself," said he, "and don't jaw me! I wish I had left you in Australia. A woman on board a ship is like a piano in the fo'c'sle. Come and have a drink, Tom."
"No, thank you," I said; "I have had quite enough."
And out he went, standing drinks at the bar to half a dozen, some of whom would have cut his throat for a dollar, I dare say, by the looks of them. Then Helen came over and sat down by me.
"I have never spoken to you, Tom," she began, and then she stopped, "since—you know, since that dreadful day outside there," and she pointed, just like a woman who never knows the bearings of a place until she has reckoned out how the house points first, to the East when she meant the West, "and now I feel I must, because I may never have the chance again."
She took out her handkerchief, although she was dry-eyed, and twisted it into a regular ground-swell knot, until I saw the stuff give way here and there. She seemed unable to go on, and perhaps she would not have said more if we hadn't heard Will's voice, thick with drink, as he demanded more liquor.
"Hear him!" she said hurriedly, "hear the man who is my husband! What a fool I was! You don't know, but I was. And I am his wife! Ah! I could kill him! I could! I could!"
I was horrified to see the passion she was in; it seemed to have a touch of real male fury in it, just as when a man is trying to control himself, feeling that if one more provocation is given him he will commit murder, for she shook and shivered, and her voice was strangely altered.