The lot of women is to wait, and they do it under a pressure of nervous strain that makes it slow torture. No turn of fortune could have surprised Deena at this crisis, for her imagination had pictured every possibility.
When a summer storm blackened the sky she saw the yacht tempest-tossed and sinking, driven before a tropical cyclone; when the sun shone, she fancied it sailing gayly into port with Simeon restored to health, expecting to find her as he left her—the willing slave, the careful housewife—and she shivered and went pale at the thought; and then in a revulsion of feeling she saw him dying, and she was ready to cast herself at his feet, and tell him all—how she had tried to do right, how she had struggled against her love for Stephen. Perhaps he would have mercy upon her and let her go away, all by herself, to wrestle with her heart.
She couldn’t eat; she couldn’t sleep. She grew so wan and thin she was like a ghost of her old self.
Her mother said:
“My dear, you must stop fretting. I am sure, under the care of that clever young doctor Mr. French took down, and with the comforts of the yacht, your husband will be quite himself by the time he gets home.”
And her father added:
“You must not be so impatient, Deena; it is mighty nasty sailing through West Indian waters, and a boat of that size doesn’t carry enough fuel for a prolonged voyage; they will have to stop for coal somewhere on their way up.”
She was growing irritable under her dread. Like Elisha, she longed to silence them with the answer:
“I know it; hold ye your peace.”
The middle of June had passed, the fourth week of the voyage had begun, and now any day, any hour, might bring news. Deena’s anxiety had made such inroads into her health that her father took alarm and called in her old friend Dr. Hassan, and he, wise man, gave her a sedative and ordered her to bed, though the afternoon was still young.