"Oh no—no! I must part with them. To-night I can do it, to-night——"
"There's nobody on this ship that will give you any price for them."
"I would not think of selling them. It would be sending them from my hands to do harm to some other poor creature, weaker than I!"
"You can't return them to-night."
"I wouldn't return them. That would be the same as keeping them."
"Then what—oh, I see—" exclaimed Markin. "You want to give them to the Army! Well, in my capacity, on behalf of General Booth——"
"No," cried Laura, with sudden excitement, "not that either. I will give them to nobody. But this is what I will do!" She seized the bracelet and flung it far out into the opaline track of the vessel, and the smaller objects, before her companion could stop her, followed it. Then he caught her wrist.
"Stop!" he cried. "You've gone off your head—you've got fever. You're acting wicked with that jewelry. Stop and let us reason it out together."
She already had the turquoises, and with a jerk of her left hand she freed it and threw them after the rest. The necklace caught the handrail as it fell, and Markin made a vain spring to save it. He turned and stared at Laura, who stood fighting the greatest puissance of feeling she had known, looking at the pearls. As he stared, she kissed them twice, and then, leaning over the ship's side, let them slowly slide out of her fingers and fall, into the waves below. The moonlight gave them a divine gleam as they fell. She turned to Markin with tears in her eyes. "Now," she faltered, "I can be happy again. But not to-night."