CHAPTER VIII
First the deed, and then the awakening. And, what a terrible awakening!
The destroyer is racing back to the base: for the mist has now cleared and high speed is once more possible.
Norah, in the tiny wardroom which has been given up to the three passengers, is a prey to the most poignant remorse and anxiety.
She sits with bowed head, her eyes fixed in a steady gaze yet seeing nothing; her arms, stretched put limply before her with the clasped hands lying in her lap would seem nerveless and lifeless but for the perpetual wreathing and untwining of her restless fingers, the outward symbol of the working of her tortured brain.
No gentle waking, this, no gradual realisation of the truth by means of observations gathered here and there and ideas slowly accumulating, such as is granted to many a one whose whole life is changed and reversed. Let this girl's past be condemned as pitilessly as you will, yet there must be some pity for the cruel shock of this blinding light that has suddenly blazed in upon her darkened mind.
Not two hours ago she was a devoted instrument of righteous vengeance, vowed to a high task whose awful nature inspired her all the more deeply.
Now, she sees very clearly the utter enormity of the thing she had planned to do. She realises the baseness of the deed itself, and the full extent of the dreadful consequences of it. But most of all she loathes and despises herself for having ever been so warped and twisted mentally as not to have known herself for what she was.
Her self-scourgings are, as with most penitents in the zeal of new conversion, laid on with too heavy a hand. She is to blame, indeed, but not so greatly as she now imagines, not so greatly as those who have moulded her to their own evil pattern. The truth was in her always, stirring to burst from this false mould--else how has she broken free now at the very moment when temptation was at its strongest?
Yet she will not spare herself nor accept a single drop of the balm of self-pity. All excuses she thrusts from her, before there is time for them to become properly visualised.
"_I did not do it--that at least is true._
"_But I meant to. Though I had days and weeks to think it over, I really meant to do it. And even at the very last moment, or almost, I still clung to my purpose._
"_Yet--after all, I changed my mind._
"_Yes, but why? Was it because I saw the enormity of the crime I was about to commit?_
"_Partly that; but not altogether. It was through an accident--the accident of a man looking at me in the way he did. And if I was hindered merely by an accident, then my real intention remains unchanged, and I am as guilty as though the deed were actually done._"
--And so on, in endless self-torment.
Happily for her, she is not allowed to continue without intermission in her bitter reflections. There are two of the destroyer's officers, a surgeon-probationer, and a midshipman, who are not on duty and are therefore free to attend to the comfort and well-being of their guests, a task which they feel it incumbent upon them to perform with all the hospitality at their command.
These two seem to think they must lend their presence and the consolations of cheerful small-talk as much as possible; and although the surgeon-probationer disappears from the little wardroom from time to time in order to give an eye to Netta who is lying exhausted in the destroyer captain's cabin, he soon darts back again and joins the midshipman in a well-meaning attempt at inducing cheerfulness.
It is an uphill task, certainly. Patrick is even more silent and moody here than he was on board the _Marathon_. He answers in gruff monosyllables to such remarks as are addressed to him, and never advances a single observation on his own account.
So the two young officers soon give up the attempt in his case, and turn all their energies upon Norah. The more readily since beauty in distress is very much more attractive than a surly unprepossessing man, and there can be no doubt either of Norah's distress or of her beauty.
Patrick therefore, is left to the material consolations of a whisky bottle and a soda syphon, which his hosts feel confident must be what he needs in a case like this. And it seems that they are not far wrong, for the silent morose man does not decline the proffered hospitality, but on the contrary pours out for himself glass after glass--and the soda-water disappears a good deal more slowly than the whisky.
Against her will, then, Norah is forced to join in conversation; or rather to force herself to listen with just sufficient attention to enable her to make suitable replies when speech is demanded of her. It is a trying ordeal for the unhappy girl; but a merciful one in reality, for probably this enforced concentration is just the one thing that keeps madness at bay.
Yet all the time she is consumed with a gnawing anxiety. There is a question she would give almost anything to be able to answer:
She herself was providentially foiled in her dread attempt; but--did Patrick succeed in bringing it to completion?
When he wrested the bomb from her grasp the moment before the _Marathon's_ officers came into the wardroom, _what did he do with it?_
She knows he could not have disposed of it in the room itself; for they left on the instant, and Patrick preceded her so that she was able to keep her eyes on him the whole time.
But afterwards? When they were out in the less brightly lit alleyway? Or during the few minutes' delay before they actually left the ship to go on board the destroyer?
There might have been an opportunity then; or was such opportunity impossible on account of the presence of other people and Patrick's ignorance of his surroundings?
He could not, surely, have just placed the bomb in any chance spot, stooping quickly in an undetected movement amidst the crowd. That would have been to court discovery, almost to a certainty, and Patrick would never be so simple as that.
Yet, was it not possible that his quick eyes might have been able to spy a hiding-place into which he might slip his hand as he passed, behind an arm-rack, under a steam-pipe, or some such likely corner? If such a chance offered itself, be sure he must have taken it!
But oh, if only Norah could know for certain!
Instead, the miserable girl has to listen and reply to the kindly talk and questionings of her two well-intentioned hosts. And, worse still, out of sheer politeness she has to recount at their eager enquiry all the wretched falsehood of the torpedoed steamer.
To the ears of her auditors it is a romantic and exciting tale of misadventure, and they press for the story in its entirety.
And Norah tells them. She is not going to make a confession to these two young officers, whatever she may do later. This, at any rate, is not the time nor the place. And what other course is open to her?
Therefore, with wild abandonment she heaps up the agony of the tale, repeating every detail of what has been already told to the _Marathon's_ officers, and even adding more.
She feels, rather than sees, the glaring eyes of Patrick fixed upon her face as she fires off the rapid narration of their pretended sufferings; and somehow this keeps her from giving way to hysterical shrieks and laughter as otherwise she would: but the compelling glance restrains her.
But at what an effort! And how thankful she is when, at the end of it, her two listeners happen to go out of the room both together for the first time, and leave her alone with her cousin!
This is the chance she has been waiting for. Immediately, with one rapid backward glance to make sure the two officers have really gone, she strides quickly across to Patrick and grasping him by the shoulder as though she would shake the answer out of him, asks in a tense, quivering voice:
"Oh, Patrick, _did_ you do it? Tell me!"
He shrinks from her grasp, and crouches back in his chair, glancing upwards and sideways at the girl standing over him. Hatred gleams from his reddened eyes, the hatred of fanaticism made fiercer by the unstinted whisky he has been drinking. It is evident that he deems the girl a treacherous renegade, and spurns her with loathing for her having deserted the great Cause.
"For why should I tell you anything, wretched girl?" he mutters. "You would only use it to betray me!"
"Oh, Patrick, tell me, tell me!"
"Curse you, keep away from me! I want no speech with you, nor ever to set eyes on you again. No kith or kin are ye of mine from this day on! Leave me alone, I bid ye!"
Nor will he deign to open his lips to say another word. Norah gives a gesture of despair and with drooping head goes back to her place.
She had had her chance, and it has been of no avail. A repetition of it is not to be hoped for, even were there any hopes of its being of any use, for the midshipman comes back again and soon his fellow officer also joins him.
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