“Any one as clever at seeing things as I am,” returned the reporter, “cannot help but see that.”
Later, as Ford was walking on the upper deck, Mrs. Ashton came toward him, beating her way against the wind. Without a trace of coquetry or self-consciousness, and with a sigh of content, she laid her hand on his arm.
“When I don’t see you,” she exclaimed as simply as a child, “I feel so frightened. When I see you I know all will come right. Do you mind if I walk with you?” she asked. “And do you mind if every now and then I ask you to tell me again it will all come right?”
For the three days following Mrs. Ashton and Ford were constantly together. Or, at least, Mrs. Ashton was constantly with Ford. She told him that when she sat in her cabin the old fears returned to her, and in these moments of panic she searched the ship for him.
The doctor protested that he was growing jealous.
“I’m not so greatly to be envied,” suggested Ford. “‘Harry’ at meals three times a day and on deck all the rest of the day becomes monotonous. On a closer acquaintance with Harry he seems to be a decent sort of a young man; at least he seems to have been at one time very much in love with her.”
“Well,” sighed the doctor sentimentally, “she is certainly very much in love with Harry.”
Ford shook his head non-committingly. “I don’t know her story,” he said. “Don’t want to know it.”
The ship was in the channel, on her way to Cherbourg, and running as smoothly as a clock. From the shore friendly lights told them they were nearing their journey’s end; that the land was on every side. Seated on a steamer-chair next to his in the semi-darkness of the deck, Mrs. Ashton began to talk nervously and eagerly.
“Now that we are so near,” she murmured, “I have got to tell you something. If you did not know I would feel I had not been fair. You might think that when you were doing so much for me I should have been more honest.”