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He the brute left her years ago; but last week well, he turned up again. . . . She we we had always believed he was dead." There was a little silence. Sangster was no longer looking at Jimmy; he was staring into the fire. Presently he began to whistle softly. Jimmy rounded on him. "Oh, shut up!" he said irritably. Sangster stopped at once. After a moment: "And the er husband!" he submitted dryly.
Married a week and now Christine had gone! It made his soul writhe to think of it. It had hurt enough to be jilted; but this well, this struck at his pride even more deeply. "I thought you promised me to go down to Upton House and see how things were," he growled at Sangster. "You haven't been, have you? I suppose you don't mean to go either?" "My dear chap "
A southeast wind came backing up against the westerly. There was in its breath a hint of something stronger. Masterless, the sloop sailed, laid to, started off again erratically, and after many shifts ran off before this stiffer wind. Unhelmed, she laid her blunt bows straight for the opening between Sangster and Squitty islands. On the cockpit floor Donald MacRae sprawled unheeding.
He took her hand and held it clumsily between his own. Her words had been like a reproach. Was he to blame? he asked himself remorsefully; and yet what could he have done? Christine would not have believed him had he tried to tell her. "It's true," she said dully. "It's true . . . and now I haven't got anybody in all the world." Sangster did not know what to answer.
"He's been out most nights, sir," he answered stoically. "Only comes home with the milk, as you might say. Hasn't slept at all, and doesn't eat. It's my opinion, sir, that he's grieving like " He looked towards the mantelshelf and the place which they could both remember had once held Cynthia Farrow's portrait. Sangster shook his head. "You mean " he asked reluctantly. "Yes, sir."
Sangster was writing letters in his rooms in the unfashionable part of Bloomsbury when Jimmy's urgent message reached him. It was brought by one of the hotel servants, who waited at the door, yawning and indifferent, while Sangster read the hastily scrawled lines: For God's sake come at once. Mrs. Wyatt died suddenly this afternoon, and there is no one to see to anything but me. Dead!
I can just see him!" she cried. "And then what did you do?" "Well, we went along to this pal of Jimmy's, and Jimmy borrowed a fiver. He gave me three pounds, and took me along to have a dinner. And well, we've been pals ever since. A bit of luck for me, wasn't it?" "I was thinking," said little Christine very earnestly, "that it was a bit of luck for Jimmy." Sangster grew furiously red.
I swore that I'd never see Cynthia again; I swore that I'd do anything in the whole world she wanted " "Except the one thing which you cannot do, I suppose," Sangster interposed quietly. "What do you mean?" "Love her," said Sangster. "That's what I mean." Jimmy tried to laugh; It was a miserable failure. "She's hardly spoken to me since," he went on, after a moment, wretchedly.
"You! good heavens!" "Yes me," said Jimmy ungrammatically. He threw his hat on to the horsehair sofa, which seemed to be the most important piece of furniture in the room, and dropped into a chair. "Got a cigarette? My case is empty." Sangster produced his own; it was brown leather, and shabby; very different from the silver and enamel absurdity which Jimmy Challoner invariably carried.
The blueback pushed on the Gray Rock to the Ballenas, as if the blackfish and seal and shark that hung always about the schools to prey were herding them to some given point. Very shortly after they could be taken in the shadow of the Ballenas light the schools swarmed about the Cove end of Squitty Island, between the Elephant on Sangster and Poor Man's Rock.
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