“You poor lamb,” said Courtesy, looking very dry and motherly beside her. “How do you feel? I’m coming to help you into bed.”
“I am perfectly well, thank you,” said the suffragette.
“Why did you jump overboard if you couldn’t swim?” asked the fourth officer, who was young and believed that there are always reasons for everything.
“It was a mistake,” said the suffragette testily, and was led below by Courtesy and a stewardess.
Tongues were loosened. Everybody reascended to the upper deck to vent their sympathy on Mrs. Paul Rust.
She had remained in her chair, because she felt that any other woman would have retired below after witnessing the suicide of an indispensable part of her travelling equipment. But she could not control her complexion. Her face was blue-white like chalk, beneath her incongruous hair. She would reply to no questions, and the priest, after making several attempts to create for himself a speaking part in the drama, was obliged to abandon his intention as far as she was concerned, for lack of support. He turned to the gardener, whose stunned mind was now regaining consciousness.
“I do indeed congratulate you on the rescue of your—your wife,” said the priest. “Yerce, yerce. As for that other poor soul, I was afraid she might make some attempt of the sort. She was suffering from some internal complaint, and had lost control of herself. Of course she had confided in me—yerce, yerce. I was so fortunate as to be able to say a few words of comfort. Perhaps it was a merciful release. But I hope she was prepared at the last. I hope that in that awful moment she thought upon her sins.”
“I hope so too,” said the gardener. “It is good to die with a happy memory in the heart.”
The general impression was that Elizabeth Hammer had made a mistake, poor thing. She was the subject of much conversation but little conjecture. The big problem of her little mind was not so much buried as never unearthed. She had made a mistake, poor thing. That was her epitaph.
The suffragette was of course a heroine. She was a heroine for the same reason as Elizabeth Hammer was a poor thing—because nobody had analysed her motives. It would have been heresy to suggest that the heroine’s motive had been pure hysteria. She had done a very useless thing in a very clumsy way, but because it had been dangerous she was promoted to the rank of heroine.