“You wrote it, of course, but how, when? Not before our voyage. You knew when you wrote—”
“Yes; I knew,” he said softly. “It was written on the night we arrived. I trusted to your ignorance of the country in the matter of postmarks, and to your femininity to pass the absence of date! Was it selfish of me to send it? I knew you would be expecting to hear, and it was a comfort to me to write. Besides, I felt that a moment would come when it would be a comfort to you, too. You had trained me to understand that your mind worked in flashes, and that at a glance you could grasp a situation which would petrify a poor male thing. Remembering this, I believed—I hoped that at the very moment of discovery you might remember what I had said, and realise that all was right between us—always had been right, always would be to the end! I wanted you to realise that that letter had been written after we had met, and that my love had changed only to grow deeper.”
Katrine sighed; a deep, long-drawn sigh in which was the sound of immeasurable content.
“Oh, I am glad,” she sighed. “I am glad! Even at the height of my love the thought of Jim Blair tugged at my heart. It hurt me to hurt him. He had wound his life so closely with mine that I couldn’t drag them apart. And a bit of me loved him still, went on loving, and wanting his love. After having accepted so much, I could never have been really satisfied to throw him over, even for—Jim! I was going to say for ‘you’ but you are Jim, and I can have you both! There’s no one to throw over; no one to be unhappy—”
Katrine paused; in her deep eyes a gleam of laughter awoke and danced. “There’s only one drawback, Captain Bedford—Blair—Jim—John—whatever you chose to call yourself, and for that you have yourself to blame!”
“I’ll bear it. I’ll bear anything! What is it now?” asked Jim, smiling.
“I shall always,” replied Katrine demurely, “I shall always feel that I am married to two men!”
The End.