"But I must tell you. I could not look you in the face again if you
did not hear it. When I was left alone in your cabin, the second time,
and the sea came in, a packet of letters fell out of some clothes which
I picked up from the floor. There was one from your sister. I hardly
knew what I was doing, but I saw her name, 'Madge,' and I read a few
words on the half page above her signature."
His left arm was now so well established that his hand touched her
cheek, and he found it wet with tears.
"What wild conceit has crept into your pretty little head?" he cried in
amaze, unconsciously raising his voice somewhat. "A letter from my
sister! She is the most straightforward woman breathing, I assure you.
Never a line has she written to me which could bear any construction
such as seems to trouble you. Why, on the contrary, Madge has often
chaffed me for being so like herself in giving no thought to matrimony."
"It is horrid of me to persist, but I owe it to you to tell you what I
saw. She alluded to your 'affianced wife,' and said that 'under no
other circumstances,' whatever they were, would she receive her."
Then Courtenay laughed again, and Elsie found it was absolutely
essential, if Joey were not to be crushed, that her head should bend a
little forward, with the obvious result that it rested on Courtenay's
shoulder.
"I must show you the whole of that letter," he cried, "and the others
which are tied up in the same bundle. You will see me blush, I admit,
but it will not be from a sense of perfidy. But there is one thing you
have forgotten, Elsie--" and his voice dropped to a tense whisper
again--"In telling me your secret, which is no secret, you have given
me my answer. Your heart must have crept out a little way to meet
mine, dear, or my sister's words would not have perplexed you. So that
is why you have avoided me during the past few days! But there! Now,
indeed, I am not acting quite fairly. It is unfair to ask you to
confess when I want you to wait until we win clear of our present
difficulties before you decide whether or not you can find it to your
liking to make a poor sailor-man happy."
Joey was a highly accommodating dog under certain conditions. He had
curled up so complacently that Elsie found she could hold him quite
easily with one arm. So the other went out in the darkness until it
rested timidly on her lover's disengaged shoulder.