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At the time she had received the letter in which he had first asked her to marry him, there had come to her, seen through the softening mists of time, a sharp, poignant remembrance of Jim Archdale's offer, "If you won't have me, Nan, I'll do something desperate! You'll be sorry then!"
Then there fell between the pair as long an interval of silence as Mrs. Eveleigh ever permitted where she was concerned. She broke it by asking, energetically: "Elizabeth, if you really believed that you were not Mr. Archdale's wife, why, in the name of wonder, did you go and put your whole fortune into his business? And why did your father let you?"
"It will be all right," he said to himself with that sigh of resignation with which we yield to the inevitable, as if there were a certain choice and merit in doing it. "It is well that the affairs of men are in higher hands than ours." John Archdale's piety was of the kind that utters itself in solitude, or under the breath.
Her hand pointing toward the door was turning him beyond the reach of all that was dearest to him. Yet for a moment it seemed as if he could not resist her, as if he were forever to be in exile. But he remembered that it was Katie Archdale's world that was looking at him out of those pitiless eyes, and condemning him.
It was characteristic that Nan's liking for John Coxeter often took the form of asking him to help these queer, unsatisfactory people. Why, even in this last week, while he had been in Paris, he had come into close relation with one of Mrs. Archdale's "odd-come-shorts." This time the man was an inventor, and of all unpractical and useless things he had patented an appliance for saving life at sea!
"We sent for him yesterday, for Mrs. Archdale seemed very bad last night." The servant dropped her voice, "It's the doctor, sir, as says Mrs. Archdale oughtn't to see visitors. You see it was in all the papers about the shipwreck, sir, and of course Mrs. Archdale's friends all come and see her to hear about it. They've never stopped.
But to-night he suddenly told himself that after all he might just as well look at the English paper he had bought at the station. He might at least see what sort of crossing they were going to have to-night. Not that he minded for himself. He was a good sailor and always stayed on deck whatever the weather, but he hoped it would be smooth for Mrs. Archdale's sake.
John Braden had relations and friends, they would learn of his sad death through the newspapers, and would come forward. And in that case "But it wouldn't surprise me," mused Bryce, "if the name given at the Mitre is an assumed name. I wonder if that theory of Archdale's is a correct one? however, there'll be more of that at the inquest tomorrow.
He had three sons here, you remember; and the colonel, the eldest of these, was named Walter, after the one supposed to have died in England. And, now, you see how this trouble all happened. The will left the greater part of the property to Mr. Archdale's oldest son, Walter, whom he supposed the colonel. But the real oldest son, Walter, was this Mr. Edmonson's father.
The shadowy figures moving about the deck only took substance when they stepped into the circle of brightness cast by a swinging globe of light which hung just above Nan Archdale's head.
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