The mate of the Vancouver

by Morley Roberts

She drew herself up.

"How many can you love at a time, Mr. Ticehurst?" she said.

"One, only one," I replied. "You are utterly mistaken."

"I am not mistaken!" she said; "and I think you are a coward and a traitor. If you were not, I might love you; but as you are, such a thing is impossible."

I caught her by the wrist. Instinctively she tried to free herself, but finding she could not, looked up. When she caught my eye, her indignant remonstrance died on her lips.

"Look you, Elsie, what can I do? Perhaps I cannot defend myself; there are some situations where a man cannot for the sake of others. I can say no more about that. And I will make you see you are wrong, if not by proof, by showing you what I am—a man incapable of what you think me—and in the end I will make you love me." I paused for a moment, but she did not move.

"You have listened to me; Elsie, and you can see what I mean, you can think whether I shall falter or swerve; and now I ask you, for I am assured you do love me, or that you did, whether you will not trust me now? For you cannot believe that I could speak as I do if I had done what you think."

I looked at Elsie, and she was very pale. I could see that I had moved her, had shaken her conviction, that she was at war with herself. I got up, went to the side, and then turned, beckoning to her to look over to seaward with me. She came almost like a woman walking in her sleep, and took a place by my side. I did so to avoid notice, for I feared to attract attention; indeed, I saw two passengers looking at us curiously, one of whom smiled so that I began to wish to throw him overboard. Yet I think, as a matter of fact, I did wrong in allowing her to move; it broke the influence I held over her in a measure, for I have often noticed since that to obtain control of some people one should keep steadily insisting on the one point, and never allow them to go beyond, or even to think beyond it. But then to do so one must be stronger than I was, or he will lose control over himself, as I did, and so make errors in judgment.

"Elsie," I said quietly, "are you not going to answer me? Or am I not worth it?"

Now, up to this moment I had taken her away from the past; in her emotion she had almost forgotten Helen; she was just wavering and was on the point of giving in to me. Yet by that last suggestion of mine I brought it back to her. I could see in her mind the darker depths of her fear and distrust of me, and what I rightly judged her hatred and jealousy of Helen. Though I do not think I know much of character, yet in the state of mind that I was in then I seemed to see her mind, as a much more subtle man might have done, and my own error. I could have cursed my own folly. She had taken the book again, and was holding it open in her hand. Until I spoke she held it so lightly that it shook and wavered, but she caught it in both hands and shut it suddenly, as though it was the book of her heart that I had been reading, and she denied my right to do it. And she turned toward me cold once more, though by a strange influence she caught my thought.