"Are you afraid to listen?" He asked it very quietly.
"No," said Jimsy King, wheeling. "I'm not afraid. Go ahead. Get it off your chest."
"Well, in the first place,—hasn't she kept you at arm's length here? Hasn't she insisted on being with other people all the time,—on having me with you?"
"Cart', I hate to say it, but that's because she's sorry for you."
"And for herself."
The murky dimness of the sala was pressing in on Jimsy as it had on the girl, that other day. He was worn with vigil and torn with thirst, sick with dread of what might any moment come to them,—with remorse for bringing Honor there, tormented with his helplessness to save her. Even at his best he was no match for the other's cleverness and now he was in the dust, blaming and hating himself. He stood there in silence, listening, and Carter's hoarse voice, Carter's plausible words, went on and on. "But I don't believe it," Jimsy would say at intervals. "She doesn't care for you, Cart'. She's all mine, Skipper is. She doesn't care for you."
"Wait!" Carter took out his wallet of limp leather with his initials on it in delicately wrought gold letters and opened it. "I didn't mean to show you this, but I see that I must. It was last summer. I—I lost my head the night before we sailed, and let Honor see.... Then I asked her.... I didn't say, 'Will you marry me?' because I knew there was no hope of that so long as she thought there was a chance of saving you by standing by you. I asked her—something else. And she sent me this wire to the boat at Naples."
Jimsy did not put out his hand to take the slip of paper which Carter unfolded and smoothed and held toward him. It was utterly still in the sala but from an upper room came the sound of Richard King's voice, faint, thick, begging for water, and from somewhere in the distance a muffled shot ... three shots.
Carter held the message up before Jimsy's eyes:
Carter Van Meter care Purser S. S. Canopic Naples
Yes.
Honor.