"Purposely?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"He attacked me! I had to defend myself."
She said nothing for several moments.
"Shall I go?" he asked.
"No! Sit still," she answered. "I am frightened of you, but I don't want you to go away. I want to think.... Yes! I can understand you better now! Your life was spoilt!"
"By no means," he answered. "I am still young! I am going to make up for those ten years."
She shook her head.
"You cannot," she answered. "The years can carry no more than their ordinary burden of sensations. If you try to fill them too full, you lose everything."
"I shall try what I can do!" he remarked calmly.
She rose abruptly.
"I am afraid of you tonight," she said. "I am going downstairs. Will you give my rug and cushion to the deck steward? And--good night."
She gave him her hand, but she did not look at him, and she hurried away a little abruptly. Wingrave yawned, and lighting a cigar, strolled up and down the deck. A figure loomed out of the darkness and almost ran into him. It was the young man in the serge suit. He muttered a clumsy apology and hurried on.
A COCKNEY CONSPIRATOR
"The bar closes in ten minutes, sir!" the smoking room steward announced. The young man who had been the subject of Wingrave's remarks hastily ordered another drink, although he had an only half-emptied tumbler in front of him. Presently he stumbled out onto the deck. It was a dark night, and a strong headwind was blowing. He groped his way to the railing and leaned over, with his head half buried in his hands. Below, the black tossing sea was churned into phosphorescent spray, as the steamer drove onwards into the night.
Was it he indeed--George Richardson? He doubted it. The world of tape measures and calico counters seemed so far away; the interior of his quondam lodgings in a by-street of Islington, so unfamiliar and impossible. He felt himself swallowed up in this new and bewildering existence, of which he was so insignificant an atom, the existence where tragedy reared her gloomy head, and the shadows of great things loomed around him. Down there in the cold restless waste of black waters--what was it that he saw? The sweat broke out upon his forehead, the blood seemed turned to ice in his veins.
Mr. Richardson was certainly nervous. Not all the brandy he had drunk--and he had never drunk half as much before in his life--afforded him the least protection from these ghastly fancies. The step of a sailor on the deck made him shiver; the thought of his empty stateroom was a horror. He tried to think of the woman at whose bidding he had left behind him Islington and the things that belonged to Islington! He tried to recall her soft suggestive whispers, the glances which promised more 

 Prev. P 60/220 next