‘Well,’ said I, ‘you know that we buried the Colonel last night?’
She started. ‘I did not know!’ she exclaimed.
‘Yes,’ I continued. ‘We slung a couple of lanterns and Finn read the service. Just before the body was launched your sister arrived, rising like a ghost amongst us.’
She looked greatly shocked. ‘Was Henrietta really present?’ she exclaimed. ‘How could she have known—what could the men have thought of her? What madness of bad taste!’
‘The forefinger follows the thumb,’ said I, ‘and when you come to the little finger you must begin again. All’s one with some people when they make a start. Am I too hard on human nature in saying this?’
But she merely exclaimed, as though talking to herself, ‘How could she be present? How could she be present?’
‘Well, now, mark what follows, Miss Jennings,’ said I; ‘when the body had vanished your sister walked right aft, kneeled upon the grating and in that posture of supplication continued to watch the dark waters for upwards of ten minutes. Meanwhile I was gazing at her from the gangway, where I stood in the dusk fidgeting exceedingly. For what was in my mind? Suppose she should fling herself overboard!’
Her violet eyes rested thoughtfully upon my face. ‘I should not have been afraid,’ she exclaimed, with a faint touch of scorn which made wonderfully sapid her voice that was low and colourless.
‘Of course you know your own sister,’ said I. ‘Finn took your view. I mentioned my misgiving, and his long head waggled most prosaically in the moonlight.’
‘Women who behave as my sister has, Mr. Monson,’ she exclaimed with the gravity of a young philosopher, ‘are too selfish, too cowardly, too much in love with themselves and with life to act as you seem to fear my sister might. They may go mad, and then to be sure there is an end of all reasoning about them; but whilst they have their senses they may be trusted so far as they themselves are concerned. In perfectly sane people many noble qualities go to impulses or resolutions which are deemed rash and impious by persons who falter over the mere telling of such deeds. My sister has not a single noble quality in her. She may poison the lives of others, but she will be extremely careful to preserve her own.’