‘Henrietta,’ he exclaimed. ‘It is I—your husband. You know my voice. I want you.’
There was no answer. He knocked again, then Miss Laura exclaimed: ‘Henrietta, open the door. Wilfrid is here—I am here, I, Laura your sister. We have come to take you home to the little one that you left behind you. Oh, Henrietta, dear, for my sake—for your child’s sake, for our father’s sake—’ her voice faltered and she broke down, sobbing piteously.
‘I hope to heaven the woman has not killed herself,’ I exclaimed to Captain Crimp. ‘But it is for you to act now. Step aft with me. You don’t want to keep her on board, I suppose?’
‘Not I,’ he answered.
‘Threaten then to break open the door. If that don’t avail, send at once for your carpenter, for you may then take it that her silence means she lies dead.’
He walked aft and beat with a fist as hard as the stock of a musket, raising a small thunder. ‘Sorry to interfere, lady;’ he exclaimed, talking at the door with his nose within an inch of it; ‘this here’s no job for the likes of me to be messing about with.’ A dead pause. ‘There’s folks who are awaiting for you to come out.’ Here he grasped the handle of the door and boisterously shook it. ‘And as there’s no call now for you to remain, and as loitering in this here heat with the hatches flush with gewhany isn’t to none of our liking, I must beg, mum,’ he shouted, ‘that you’ll slip the bolt inside and open the door.’
Another dead pause. Miss Jennings looked aghast, and indeed the stillness within the cabin now caused me to forebode the worst. It was clear, however, that no fear of the sort had visited Wilfrid. He gazed at the door with a kind of terrier-like expression in his fixed eyes.
Captain Crimp once more beat heavily and again wrestled with the handle, trying the door at the same time with his shoulder. ‘Well, mum,’ he bawled, ‘you will do as you like, I suppose, and so must I. I’m not partial to knocking my ship about, but by thunder! lady, if this here door ain’t opened at once I’ll send for the carpenter to force it.’ Another pause. He added in his hoarsest voice, addressing us generally, ‘Do she know that the gent that’s been keeping her company has gone aboard the yacht?’
‘She’ll know it now,’ I answered, ‘if she has ears to hear with.’
I noticed Wilfrid violently start on my saying this.