CHAPTER XIII

Besides all her other anxieties, there is still one further question that has been exercising Norah's mind--what has become of her cousin Patrick? For she has not seen him since they landed together from the destroyer which brought them all back to the base. She and Netta were taken at once to the island where Mrs. Shaw presided over the hut, as the one place where they could be cared for by members of their own sex. But as for Patrick, he was disposed of somewhere else. Norah does not know where; so now she finds her opportunity to ask.

"Mr. Dimsdale, can you give me any news of my cousin, Mr. Sheridan?"

"Mr. Sheridan? Oh, he is in the Depôt ship for the present. I believe it was his wish to go South to-morrow by himself, and to send for you ladies as soon as you are well enough to undertake the journey. I believe the plan is altered now--I should say, I believe he has made a different arrangement since this morning. I'm afraid I really must be getting away, if you will be good enough to excuse me. I am very busy this afternoon; heaps of work waiting for me in my office."

Netta raised her eyes to him--and very pretty grey eyes they are, too, and anxiously enquires:

"You have seen my brother, then, have you? When was it you saw him? How was he? Did he ask for us?"

Dimsdale finds it a little difficult to reply to all these questions at once; but manages to say:

"Yes, and I expect you would like to see him too. Shall I go and tell him so? I can go right away and do it now, if you like. I can--easily. I have nothing particular to do this afternoon."

"Oh, no," cries Netta, shrinking from the ordeal of having to face her terrible brother, "don't let him come here!"

The secretary eyes her very sympathetically, and is evidently affected by her distress.

"He needn't come, if you're not feeling up to it," he replies encouragingly.

"Yes, that is it," Netta tells him, glad to be given a ready-made explanation of what might seem an unnatural reluctance to see her brother. "I am not strong enough just now. Perhaps it would be better for him to go on by himself as he suggests."

"But _I_ want to see him," Norah breaks in, "I _must_ see him, and as soon as possible."

It really is rather trying for poor Dimsdale to arrange matters so as to please these two young ladies who hold such very opposite and very exacting views! He can only follow the line of least resistance, and promise the last speaker exactly what she asks. This is the easiest way out of it for him, and so he proceeds to tell Norah that she shall certainly have her wish and see her cousin at once.

"Not to-day; not to-day!" the agitated Netta appeals.

"Very well then, to-morrow? To-morrow morning? I'll arrange it. I really _must_ go and find the admiral; I am sure he wants me. Some very important business!"

"Well, Mr. Dimsdale," Norah tells him, "if you will please arrange for my cousin to come here to-morrow morning I shall be very grateful."

"I'll go and see about it this very minute," answers the much harassed secretary, seeing at last a chance of escape: "I'll go right off to the Depôt ship at once. Good morning--good afternoon, I mean. Good afternoon!"

And, after a few hasty strides in quite the wrong direction, he recovers himself sufficiently to know where he wants to go, and turns about, disappearing presently towards the landing-place.

Norah follows him with laughing eyes. "Poor man!" she whispers, smiling.

But Netta has a haunting fear which does not allow her to share in her cousin's amusement. She turns to her at once, gasping out:

"Oh, Norah, at last I've got a chance to speak to you! Tell me, did you do it, did you do it?"

No need to specify further her meaning. Norah knows, and at once gives her answer.

"No, Netta, I did not. I meant to do it--indeed, up to the very last moment I fully intended to; but then I--I altered my mind!"

"Oh, thank God! But--why?"

"I do not know. No, that is not quite true; I do know why. Let me at least have the honesty to speak the truth to you, even though it is to my own shame! A woman who had the fixed intention of becoming a wholesale murderess ought not to shrink from putting off a little of her maiden modesty. I did not set the bomb, because of--because of one man."

"What man, Norah? That young officer who was so kind in looking after you?"

"Yes. He was so good to me, and so merry-hearted. And all the time while he was taking care of me with such tenderness--with his gay, light chatter, which I could see well enough was only meant to keep me from breaking down--all that time I kept saying to myself, _I am going to kill you soon; in a few hours you will lie lying a burnt and mangled corpse at the bottom of the sea; and it is my hand that is going to send you there!_"

Netta gives a low moan, burying her face in her hands; only looking up again after a pause to say:

"Horrible! I know! _I_ felt like that almost from the beginning, even before we started out. But you have always been so much more strong-minded than I am. I quite thought that _you_ would have allowed nothing to hinder you--nothing, no one!"

"No one but this man alone could have done so, I believe," solemnly answers the other girl.

"What! Do you mean----? You _fell in love_ with him, then? Norah! _You_!"

"I do not know. Oh, why do you ask me that question! But I will make a clean breast of it all, to you. Yes, I think I did. But, all the same, it was not on his account alone that I held my hand at the last moment."

"But I thought you said----?"

"I mean--yes, I _would_ have refused for his sake alone; but it was not _only_ that. It was--yes, I suppose it must have been love; love, that made me wake up and see what a terrible thing it was that I was about to do. And then, all those other lives suddenly seemed to me just as precious as"--very softly come her closing words--"as his!"

"But what became of the bomb?" enquires Netta, who not being in love herself has now become the more practical-minded of the two.

"Ah," Norah replies despondingly, "that is just what I would give anything to know! Patrick snatched it from me, just as I was going to fling it overboard, and at that very moment the officers came into the room. Whether Patrick was able to put it down somewhere afterwards, I cannot tell. I am so afraid he _may_ have found an opportunity. But I hope not; indeed, I am almost sure he did not."

"You are sure of that, you say? Oh, I am so glad!"

"No, not _quite_ sure. That is just the haunting dread I still feel. And, that, too, is just why I must see him, to find out definitely."

"But haven't you asked him already?"

"No, I tried to, but he would not speak to me on board the destroyer. He is angry with me, and looks on me as a traitress to the cause--as I suppose I am. But he _must_ tell me what he did!--_Look!_"

Her voice has suddenly altered to one of intense alarm and surprise.

"_Look!_" she repeats, clutching at her cousin's arm, and gazing wildly down the path. "It is----"

Netta has seen too; and she also needs no second glance to recognise the man who has approached unnoticed until he is quite near them.

It is Alick Stapleton.

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