I didn’t. But it is so astonishing. I can’t understand how it happened. It seems so extraordinary, and so—so opportune.”
Osmond chuckled grimly. “It does,” he agreed. “Remarkably opportune. Almost as if I had polished Larkom off ad hoc. Well, I didn’t.”
“Of course you didn’t. Who supposed for a moment that you did? But do tell me exactly how it happened.”
“Well, it was quite simple. Poor old Larkom died of blackwater fever. He was a good fellow. One of the very best, and the only friend I had. He knew all about me—or nearly all—and he did everything he could to help me. It was an awful blow to me when he died. But he never had a chance when once the fever took hold of him. He was an absolute wreck and he went out like the snuff of a candle, though he managed to make a will before he died, leaving the factory and all his effects to his friend James Cook. It was he who invented that name for me.
“Well, of course, when he was dead, I had to bury him and stick up a cross over his grave. And—then I just painted the wrong name on it. That’s all.”
She nodded without looking at him and a shadow seemed to fall on her face. “I see,” she said, a little coldly. “It was a tempting opportunity; and events have justified you in taking it.”
Something in her tone arrested his attention. He looked at her sharply and with a somewhat puzzled expression. Suddenly he burst out: “Good Lord, Betty! You don’t think I did this thing in cold blood, do you?”
“Didn’t you?” she asked. “Then how did you come to do it?”
“I’ll tell you. Poor old Larkom’s name was John, like mine. I had painted in the ‘John’ and was just going to begin the ‘Larkom’ when I happened to look along the beach. And there I saw Cockeram with his armed party bearing down on Adaffia. Of course, I guessed instantly what his business was, and I saw that there was only one thing to be done. There was the blank space on the cross. I had only to fill it in with my own name and the situation would be saved. So I did.”
Her face cleared at this explanation. “I am glad,” she said, “that it was only done on the spur of the moment. It did seem a little callous.”
“I should think so,” he agreed, “if you thought of me sitting by the poor old fellow’s bedside and calmly planning to use his corpse to cover my retreat. As it was, I hated doing it; but necessity knows no law. I have thought more than once of making a dummy grave for myself and shifting the cross to it and of setting up a proper memorial to Larkom. And I will do it when I get back.”
She made no comment on this; and as, at the moment her line tightened, she hauled it in, and impassively detaching a big red snapper from the hook, re-baited and cast the line overboard with a curiously detached, preoccupied air. Apparently, she was reflecting profoundly on what she had just learned, and Osmond, glancing at her furtively from time to time, abstained from interrupting her meditations. After a considerable interval she turned towards him and said in a low, earnest tone: “There is one thing that I want to ask you. Just now you said that you felt you ought to tell me this; that I ought to know. I don’t quite see why.”
“There was a very good reason,” he replied, “and I may as well make a clean breast of it. To put it bluntly, I fell in love with you almost as soon as I saw you, and naturally, I have grown to love you more with every day that has passed.”
She flushed deeply, and glancing at him for an instant, turned her eyes once more on her line.
“Still,” she said in a low voice, “I don’t see why you thought I ought to know.”
“Don’t you?” he rejoined. “But surely it is obvious. You accepted me as your chum and you seemed to like me well enough. But you had no inkling as to who or what I was. It was my clear duty to tell you.”
“You mean that there was the possibility that I might come to care for you and that you felt it your duty to warn me off?”
“Yes. It wasn’t very likely that there would be anything more than friendship on your side; but still it was not impossible. Women fall in love with the most unlikely men.”
At this she smiled and looked him squarely in the face, “I thought you meant that,” she said, softly, “and, of course, you were quite right. But if your intention was to put me on my guard and prevent me from caring for you, your warning has come too late. You would have had to tell me before I had seen you—and I don’t believe it would have made a scrap of difference even then. At any rate, I don’t care a fig what you have done—I know it was nothing mean. But all the same, I am glad you told me. I should have hated to find it out afterwards by myself.”
He gazed at her in dismay. “But, Betty,” he protested, “you don’t seem to grasp the position. There is a warrant out for my arrest.”
“Who cares?” she responded. “Besides, there isn’t. John Osmond is dead and there is no warrant out for Captain James Cook. It is you who don’t grasp the position.”
“But,” he expostulated, “don’t you realize that I can never go home? That I can’t even show my face in Europe?”
“Very well,” said she. “So much the worse for Europe. But there are plenty of other places; and what is good enough for you is good enough for me. Now, Jim, dear,” she added, coaxingly, “don’t create difficulties. You have said that you love me—I think I knew it before you told me—and that is all that matters to me. Everything else is trivial. You are the man to whom I have given my heart, and I am not going to have you crying off.”
“Good God, Betty!” he groaned, “don’t talk about ‘crying off.’ If you only know what it means to me to look into Paradise and be forced to turn away! But, my dearest love, it has to be. I would give my life for you gladly, joyfully. I am giving more than my life in refusing the sacrifice that you, in the nobleness of your heart, are willing to make. But I could never accept it. I could never stoop to the mean selfishness of spoiling the life of the woman who is more to me than all the world.”
“I am offering no sacrifice,” she said. “I am only asking to share the life of the man I love. What more does a woman want?”
“Not to share such a life as mine,” he replied, bitterly. “Think of it, Betty, darling! For the rest of my days I must sneak about the world under a false name, hiding in obscure places, scanning the face of every stranger with fear and suspicion lest he should discover my secret and drag me from my sham grave. I am an outcast, an Ishmaelite. Every man’s hand is against me. Could I allow a woman—a beautiful girl, a lady of position—to share such a sordid existence as mine? I should be a poor lover if I could think of such contemptible selfishness.”
“It isn’t so bad as that, Jim, dear,” she pleaded. “We could go abroad—to America—and make a fresh start. You would be sure to do well there with your abilities, and we could just shake off the old world and forget it.”
He shook his head, sadly. “It is no use, darling, to delude ourselves. We must face realities. Mine is a wrecked life. It would be a crime, even if it were possible, for me to take you from the surroundings of an English lady and involve you in the wreckage. It was a misfortune, at least for you, that we ever met, and there is only one remedy. When we separate, we must try to forget one another.”
“We shan’t, Jim,” she exclaimed, passionately. “You know we shan’t. We aren’t, either of us, of the kind that forgets. And we could be so happy together! Don’t let us lose
