Arthur Stringer

“ It seemed both a symbol and a reminiscence, that flying descent of the young officer; she had, in some way, always held men at that quietly imperious call.
Crombie noticed that she was dressed all in gray. Her eyes, too, seemed the same quiet and brooding gray. Even the soft oval of her face, through the minute, warm rain that now shrouded everything, seemed gray, a wan and whitish gray that sent a vague spear of apprehension through him. ”

“ She was being brave enough; she had won her battle already; it was he himself who had still to try and test his strength. Outside, through the darkening afternoon mist, the fog-horn began to sound hoarsely. At each slow blast it seemed to tear a hole in the lonely silence.
“Is there anything you can tell me, beforehand, to make me steadier, to make it easier for you, I mean?” she was asking him.
He fought back the words that leaped first to his lips—for that way he knew madness to lie. ”

“ For the woman who had come up the ship’s ladder, out of the fog that seemed to leave all the rest of the world phantasmal and far away, was his divorced wife.
In life, then, he told himself, even the widest divergent circles must some time and somewhere impinge. ”

“ It was some four hours later, when they were well out in the Atlantic, that Cummings, the English stewardess, came to him with the message that he was wanted by one of the first-cabin passengers. Some wayward and intuitive prompting warned him, even as the words first fell on his ears, from what quarter that call was to come.
“Who is the passenger?” he asked, nevertheless, turning to the woman in the doorway. ”

“ That the tides of chance should fling them thus together, after he had given her such a wide berth, after he had given her two continents to herself, made it seem that destiny took some tacit delight in twisting the blade even after it had probed its deepest. ”

“ He was thinking, too, how much fairer it might have been, if they were on a regular liner, on a modern and properly equipped ship with a first cabin hospital-room and every convenience.
As it was, he would have to have the midships dispensary scrubbed down and the operating-table brought up from the steerage ward. As for Kaposvar, he was all but useless; he was so slow and thick-skulled that three cases of tricoma had got past him at Fiume. ”

“ He wondered why it had always been so hard for him to be honest and outspoken with her.
“Then the longer we wait the—the less chance there is?” she was asking him, bravely enough.
He nodded his head in silent assent. She looked about the little cabin as though taking her last comprehensive view of life. ”

“ It was in her surrendering helplessness that she lay most powerful. It was, perhaps, the penalty of his dominant and undisciplined strength; for, like all strong men, he could pay tribute only to weakness. ”

“ Then he looked at the woman propped up against the pillows on the narrow berth. The solemn concentration of her eyes, for one fleeting moment, almost put his calmness to rout. Then his part came back to him once more, and he stooped a little toward her. The movement was one of silent interrogation.
“It’s too bad to trouble you,” she began evenly, although her eyes. still studied his thin and impassive face.
For answer, he took the wrist that lay weakly over the berth side.
“It’s too bad, I know,” she repeated, with her gray smile and her quiet, even voice. “But I’m afraid I’m rather ill!” ”

“ The momentary tremulousness of her voice—for his eyes were averted from her face—pierced him with a needle of sublimated anguish. He turned suddenly to the door to shield his confusion, and called to the stewardess, who still waited outside.
“Cummings, go to the steerage dispensary and tell Doctor Kaposvar to look after the obstetrical case in the midships ward. I'll be busy here for an hour.”
The mask, by this time, was readjusted, the part remastered. When he turned to the narrow berth, he saw not a woman, but a wan and broken body ”