E. Phillips Oppenheim

“ The little handful of passengers, who seemed for the moment to have cast all anxieties to the winds, played shuffleboard and quoits, lunched with vigorous appetites, drank tea out on deck, and indulged in strenuous before-dinner promenades. The sun shone all day, the sea remained wonderfully calm. Not a trace of any other steamer was visible from morning until early nightfall, and Jocelyn Thew walked restlessly about with a grim look upon his face. At dinner time the captain hinted at fog, and looked doubtfully out of the open porthole at the oily-looking waste of waters. ”

“ Jocelyn Thew, whether you have a heart at all."
For a single moment he looked at her kindly. His hand even patted hers. It was a curious revelation. He was a kindly ordinary human being.
"Ah, Nora," he said, "I am not quite so bad as that! But for many years I have had a great, driving impulse inside me, and at the back of it the most wonderful incentive in all the world. You know what that is, Nora—or perhaps you don't. To a woman it would be love, I suppose. To a man it is hate." ”

“ This constant espionage gets on one's nerves. Look at them all around us,—Crawshay in the corner, trying his best to get something incriminating out of Nora Sharey; Brightman smoking a cigar out there, with his eyes wandering all the time through the glass screen towards this table; and the young man who seemed to haunt your hotel, Miss Beverley—Henshaw I believe his name is—you see him dining there with his back turned ostentatiously towards us and a little pocket mirror by his side. There are three pairs of eyes that scarcely ever leave us. ”

“ The length of one's life is purely a relative thing. It will come in ten or twenty years, if not to-morrow. Why not to-morrow?"
"If you put it like that," Gant grunted, "why not to-day?"
"Or at any moment, if you will. I am quite ready, as ready as I ever shall be. If I fail to bring off what I desire within the next few days, there will be an end of me. Do I look as though I were worrying about that?"
"You don't indeed," the doctor agreed. "You ought to have been in my profession. You might have become the greatest surgeon in the world."
Jocelyn Thew shrugged his shoulders. ”

“ Jocelyn ventured.
"I am like all artists," Crawshay sighed. "I love an audience. I must express myself to something. I will wish you good evening, Miss Beverley. I feel inclined to take a little walk, in case it becomes too rough later on."
He shuffled away, once more the perfect prototype of the malade imaginaire. Jocelyn Thew watched him in silence until he had disappeared. Then he turned and seated himself by the girl's side.
"I find myself," he remarked ruminatively, "still a little troubled as to the precise amount of intelligence which our friend Mr. Crawshay might be said to possess. ”

“ A herdsman and his wife, perhaps a girl or two, live somewhere in the back quarters. The only apartment in any sort of preservation is the one sometimes called the picture gallery and sometimes the banqueting hall. You should visit this ruined mansion, sir. You should visit it before you give me the lie when I call you Sir Denis Cathley."
Jocelyn Thew's hand for a moment shielded part of his face, as though he found the electric light a little strong. From behind the shelter of his palm his eyes met the eyes of his visitor. The latter suddenly turned and bowed to Katharine. ”

“ Crawshay turned his head and contemplated his companion for a few moments. Jocelyn Thew, notwithstanding his fine, slim figure, his well-cut clothes and lean, handsome face, carried always with him some nameless, unanalysable air of the man who has played the explorer, who has peered into strange places, who has handled the reins which guide the white horse of life as well as the black horse of death. ”

“ Jocelyn Thew observed, as he watched Crawshay disappear, "you need some taking care of, eh, Nora?"
She shrugged her shoulders. Her eyes sought his. She looked at him defiantly.
"Well," she exclaimed, "London's a dull place all alone. So's life."
"I am not interfering in your choice of residence or companionship," he replied, "although it seems strange that you, whom I think I may call my friend, should choose to amuse yourself with the one person in life who is my open enemy, the one man who has sworn to bring about my downfall." ”

“ Jocelyn Thew knocked the ash from his cigar. He smiled deprecatingly at his companion. Certainly there was no man in that very fashionable restaurant who looked less like a criminal.
"My dear Beverley," he expostulated, "you must remember that I am an exceedingly clever person. I am suspected of any number of misdemeanours. I will not say that there are not one or two of which I have not been guilty, but I have never left behind me any proof. I dare say the English police over here look on me sometimes just as hungrily as the New York ones. They feel in their hearts that I am an adventurer. ”

“ Katharine, who had come up on deck, stood by Jocelyn Thew's side.
"Is this really the way that they shoot," she asked, "or aren't they trying to hit us?"
"They are not trying," he told her. "If they were, every shot they fired at this range would be sufficient to send us to the bottom."
"Why aren't they trying?" she persisted.
"There's a reason for that, which I can't at the moment explain," was the gloomy reply. "They want to capture us, not sink us! What I can't understand, though, is how the captain here found that out."
"How is it that you are so well-informed?" Katharine asked curiously. ”

“ Long, green waves came rolling in from the Atlantic. Distant rocks gleamed purple in the gathering sunshine. The green of the fields grew deeper, the colouring on the moors warmer. Crawshay lit a cigarette and leaned back against a rock.
"Over in America," he observed, "I heard all sorts of stories about you. The man Hobson, with whom I was sent to Halifax, and who dragged me off to Chicago, seemed to think that if he could once get his hand on your shoulder there were other charges which you might have to answer. Brightman, that Liverpool man, had the same idea. ”

“ When they stood upright again, Katharine studied the newcomer for a minute critically. There was a certain air of strain about most of the passengers. Even Jocelyn Thew's firm hand had trembled, a moment ago, as he had lowered his glasses. Crawshay, seated upon his lifebelt, with a mackintosh buttoned around him, his eyeglass firmly adjusted, his mouth querulous, was not exactly an impressive-looking object. Yet she wondered.
"Give me your hand," she asked suddenly.
He obeyed at once. The fingers were cool and firm.
"Why do you pretend to be afraid?" she demanded. "You aren't in the least." ”

“ When I think of you now, my heart is like a stone, because I know that there is no love in you, nor any of those other things for which a woman craves. I should be very sorry indeed, Jocelyn Thew, for any woman who ever cared for you, and for her own sake I pray very much that there is no one at the present moment who does. ”

“ Why, the fire that smouldered has become a blaze," was the eager response. "Ireland is our country here. Why—you know?"
"Know what?" Jocelyn Thew demanded. "You must treat me as a stranger, Timothy, I have been living under a false name. News has failed me for years."
"Don't you know," the old man went on eagerly, "that they meet here in the castle, the men who count—Hagen, the poet, Matlaske, the lawyer, Indewick, Michael Dilwyn, Harrison, and the great O'Clory himself?" ”

“ Jocelyn Thew replied. "I understand that he has asked specially to be allowed to remain where he is. There would of course be not the slightest chance of saving his life. The doctor who is with him—Gant, I think his name is—told us that anything in the shape of a rough sea, even, would mean the end of him. He quite understands this himself." Crawshay assented gravely.
"It seems a little brutal but it is common sense," he declared. "In times of great stress, too, one becomes primitive, and the primitive instinct is for the strong to save himself. ”

“ The seal of the envelope had melted, and a little thread of green wax had made a strange pattern upon the stones.
"Is this the end, then?" he demanded in bewilderment.
"It is the end," was the solemn reply. "Perhaps if you take the ashes away with you, you will be able to consider that honours are divided."
"You burnt them—yourself?" Crawshay muttered, still wondering. "Every gentleman in this room," Denis replied, "is witness of the fact that I destroyed unopened the packet which I brought from America, barely five minutes ago." ”

“ The decks, the promenade rails, every exposed part of the steamer, were glistening with wet. Up on the bridge, three officers besides the captain stood with eyes fixed in grim concentration upon the dense curtains of mist which seemed to shut them off altogether from the outer world. Jocelyn Thew and Crawshay met in the companionway, a few minutes after breakfast.
"I can see no object in the disuse of the hooter," Crawshay declared querulously. "Nothing at sea could be worse than a collision. We are simply taking our lives in our hands, tearing along like this at sixteen knots an hour." ”

“ At the same time, I am bound to confess that if we could both of us hear exactly what Jocelyn Thew is saying to-night across those red roses, I think perhaps that I should back the House of York."
"So that's the stunt, is it?" she remarked coolly. "You want to make me jealous of Katharine Beverley?"
"The cleverest and hardest men in the world," Crawshay observed, "generally meet with their Waterloo at the hands of your sex. So far as I am concerned, I am myself in distress. I am jealous of Jocelyn Thew." ”

“ Jocelyn Thew."
Crawshay frowned. His expression became gloomier.
"I am bound to confess, Miss Sharey," he sighed, "that your friend Mr.
Jocelyn Thew has been the disappointment of my life."
"Some brains, eh?"
"He has brains, courage and luck," Crawshay pronounced. "Against these three things it is very hard work to bring off—shall I say a coup?"
"The man who gets the better of Jocelyn Thew," she declared, with a little laugh, "deserves all the nuts. He is a sure winner every time. You're up against him now, aren't you?"
"More or less," Crawshay confessed. "I crossed on the steamer with him." ”

“ Crawshay may say. Won't you in return treat me, if not as a confederate, as a friend?"
He turned and looked at her, met the appealing glance of her soft eyes for a moment and looked suddenly away.
"I do not belong to the ranks of those, Miss Beverley, from whom it is well for you to choose your friends."
"But why should I not make my own choice?" she insisted. "I have always been my own mistress. I have lived with my own ideas, I have declined to be subject to any one's authority. I am an independent person. ”

“ A steward passed back and forth amongst the passengers with a universal request—all were asked to repair to their staterooms. Twenty-seven exceedingly alert-looking men thereupon commenced their task.
Seated upon the couch in her room, with a cup of coffee by her side and a cigarette between her lips, Katharine listened to the conversation which passed in the opposite room, the one which had been tenanted by Phillips. For some reason, the end of the voyage, instead of bringing her the relief which she had expected, had only increased her nervous excitement. ”

“ Crawshay asked eagerly.
"The worst that ever breathed," Brightman declared, "the bravest, coolest, best-bred scoundrel who ever mocked the guardians of the law. Mind you, I am not saying that he hasn't done other things. He has travelled and fought in many countries, but when he comes back to civilisation he can't rest. The world has to hear of him. Things move in New York underground. The moment he takes rooms at the Carlton-Ritz, things happen in a way that they have never happened before, and we know that there's genius at the back of it all, and Jocelyn Thew smiles in our faces. ”

“ Jocelyn Thew was standing in her stateroom.
"You?" she exclaimed.
"I am not disappointed in you, I am sure," he said softly. "You will keep still. You will not say a word. I have risked the whole success of a great enterprise to come and say these few words to you. I am ashamed and sorry for what you are suffering, but I want to tell you this. Nothing serious will happen—nothing serious can happen to you. Everything is not as it seems. ”