CHAPTER XVI

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"The fire is out!" she cried, as she came within speaking distance.

"I know," he answered stolidly. His face was expressionless, not a muscle moved. An observer might have mistaken him for a figure cast in bronze.

"How did it go out?" demanded Grace, trying to control herself.

Still he made no answer.

"How did it go out?" she repeated. "Did you put it out?"

Armitage nodded. Then, with a defiant toss of his head, he said:

"Yes--I put it out."

Grace stared at him in utter astonishment, scarcely able to believe her ears. She was so overwrought with indignation that everything seemed to swim before her eyes. She felt weak and faint. Fearing that she would fall, she leaned against a tree for support.

"You put it out! You put it out!" she gasped. "Why--tell me why."

He shrugged his shoulders, and for a moment made no answer. Then, with eyes averted from hers, he said in a low tone:

"What's the use of letting it burn any longer? Nobody will see it if it burns till doomsday. It might burn on forever, till there was no more wood left on the island to feed it with, and still you'd be here eating your heart out waiting for help that would never come. It was labor thrown away."

Unable to control herself any longer, Grace burst out passionately, almost hysterically.

"So that is it? Because it was hard work, you sacrifice me! Because you prefer this idle, savage existence to the hard life you used to lead, you do not wish to get away. I must spend here my youth, the rest of my days because this sort of life pleases you. And you don't hesitate to destroy my only chance of relief because it suits you. How dare you! I thought you were a man. I was mistaken. A true man would not take advantage of a helpless woman's misfortune to further his own selfish interests. You are free to stay in this lonely spot if you choose, but I will not. I refuse to sacrifice myself. I will go away in spite of you. I don't know how, but I will find some way, and when I get back among my friends I shall tell them how a man treated a poor defenceless girl."

He made a step toward her, as if about to say something, when she retreated and exclaimed:

"Don't come near me!" she cried, almost hysterically. "I hate you. I won't let you address me again until that fire is lighted."

She sank down on the stump of a tree and, burying her face in her hands, gave way, womanlike, to a torrent of tears. When the hysterical spell had passed, he was still standing humbly before her, looking down at her, with a sad, set expression on his face.

"Won't you listen to me?" he said.

"I won't listen to anything until you have lighted the fire once more," was her stubborn reply.

Overhead the sun suddenly broke through the heavy gray clouds. The mists slowly lifted. Once more land and water were bathed in a flood of cheering sunshine. Grace's moods were mercurial. All that morning she had been particularly depressed because of the weather. As Nature put on a fairer garb, her spirits rose. She now felt sorry she had spoken so harshly to him. At least, she might have given him a chance to explain.

"Won't you listen?" he asked again.

He spoke pleadingly, without anger, the rich tones of his voice trembling with suppressed emotion. Standing bareheaded, the sun falling full on his tanned face and neck, he looked strikingly handsome.

"Why did you extinguish the fire?" she demanded again in a low and more conciliatory tone.

Leaning over toward her, he said:

"Can't you guess the real reason?"

"Because of the trouble--you said as much."

He shook his head and there was a note of reproach in his voice as he replied:

"You don't think that is the reason. You ought to know that I should consider no task too irksome if it would add to your happiness."

He spoke so earnestly that Grace looked up at him in surprise. What did he mean? His eyes met hers without flinching. He was silent. She saw he wanted to say something and hesitated. She knew not why, but there was something disturbing in this man's silent, persistent gaze.

"What is the real reason?" she murmured, at last.

"Can't you guess?" he demanded hoarsely.

"No," she replied, outwardly calm, but with misgivings within.

"Because I love you!" he cried passionately.

He sprang eagerly forward, as if about to take her in his arms. Grace, startled, fell back.

"You love me?" she repeated mechanically.

"Yes, I love you--I love you!" he repeated wildly. "Haven't you seen it, haven't you felt it all along?"

The color fled from her cheeks. Her lips trembled. The crucial moment which she had dreaded had arrived at last.

"If you love me," she said, with a forced smile, "you have a curious way of showing it. You know that all my hopes centered on that signal-fire, and yet wilfully, deliberately, you destroyed it. If you love me, why did you do that?"

"Because," he said in a hoarse whisper, "I was afraid that some ship might see the blaze and come and take you away. I love you so much that I'd stop at nothing. You are the first woman I've ever loved. You don't know what that means to me. When a man of my age loves for the first time, the force of his passion frightens him. These last two days and nights I have purposely avoided you. I have tried to control and master myself. I have tried to forget you, to banish you from my thoughts. All last night I tramped through the woods, trying to persuade myself that it was an impossible dream, that such happiness could never befall such a poor devil as I. But I could not--I could not. In each tree I saw your dear face, in every sigh of the wind I heard the plaintive sounds of your sweet voice. Then, suddenly, I caught sight of the blaze on that hill. Instantly I felt it was my enemy. I knew that if a ship came I would lose you. I realized that it would mean the end of my happiness. Maddened by the thought, I was seized by a sudden fury. I ran all the way up to the top of the hill and trampled it out. Can't you understand that I don't want to lose you, that I don't want you to go?"

Grace listened, her face flushed. When he ceased speaking, she said gently:

"Any woman would feel pleased and honored at what you say. You have been very kind to me. I shall never forget what I owe you. I am deeply grateful. I shall always remember you." Hesitatingly she added: "It may be that you are right--that a ship will never come--what then? What do you want me to do?"

"To--to be my wife!" he replied quickly and eagerly.

Grace gasped. She was not without a sense of humor and the incongruity of the situation was at once apparent to her. Really he went too far. He was making her a serious proposal of marriage. This sailor, fireman, stoker, or whatever he might be, was actually asking the heiress to millions, one of the prizes of New York's matrimonial market--to be his wife! It was too absurd. Only the grave, pleading expression in Armitage's face deterred her from laughing outright. If any of her set in New York heard of it, they would chaff her without mercy.

"How handsome he is!" she murmured to herself as she looked at him. "What a pity we are not social equals!"

She was sorry for him, of course, but it would be kinder if she put him at once in his place and made him understand the hopelessness of his position.

"Do you hear?" he said hoarsely, his voice quivering from suppressed emotion. "I want you--I want you to be my wife!"

Grace drew herself up with the air of offended dignity of a queen hurt in her pride. Her gown was in tatters, her lovely hair hung loose over her snow-white shoulders. With her cheeks slightly flushed and her large dark eyes dilated and more lustrous from excitement, never had she appeared to him more beautiful or desirable. Like a trembling felon at the dock waiting to hear the judge pronounce his fate, Armitage waited for her answer.

"Your wife?" she replied not unkindly. "Do you know what I am, do you realize what position I hold in society? Don't you know that my father is one of America's kings of finance, that his fortune is twenty millions, and that our winter and summer homes are among the show-places of Fifth Avenue and Newport? Don't you know that I spend $10,000 a year on my dress, that I have a dozen servants to run at my call, that my carriages, my horses, gowns and jewels furnish endless material for the society reporters of the yellow journals? Men have proposed to me--men of means, men of my own class. I refused them all because they hadn't money enough." With a scornful toss of her head, she added: "I despise a husband who looks to his wife for support."

Armitage had listened patiently until now, but her last words aroused him. Suddenly interrupting her, he broke in:

"You refused them not because they weren't rich enough, but because you didn't love them. You can't deceive me. I haven't watched and studied you all these weeks for nothing. You aren't as shallow and heartless as you pretend. You are too intelligent to find pleasure in Society's inane pastimes. You admitted to me yourself that something seemed lacking in your life. Shall I tell you what it is?"

He advanced closer and, looking fixedly at her, went on:

"I can read the secret in your beautiful eyes--the windows of your soul. Shall I tell you what your heart desires? You are love-hungry. Your whole being cries out for love. Not the infamous traffic in flesh and honor which receives the blessing of fashionable churches, but the pure, true, unselfish, ideal love that thrills a man and woman under God's free sky. What good are your father's millions here? What do I care about your houses, your gowns and your jewels? Here, stripped of everything but your own sweet lovable nature, you are only a woman--a woman I love and want to call mine own."

His voice held her spellbound. The tone of authority in his words weakened her will-power. His ardent eyes, looking tenderly into hers, fascinated her. She felt that the odds were fearfully against her. It required all her moral strength to resist his pleading, yet there was nothing here to which she could cling. At home, in New York, she could take refuge behind a hundred excuses. The polite conventions of society would lend her support. But here alone on this lonely island with this man whom she knew in her heart she loved, this man who insisted on frank explanations, straightforward answers, the odds were fearfully against her. She felt herself weakening.

"Please don't," she murmured confusedly. "It's utterly impossible. Don't you see how impossible it is--even if I did care for you? In a short time a ship will come. We shall be taken off. We shall go back to New York. Each of us will resume the old life, and this adventure will be only a memory."

Armitage laughed cynically, and he made a gesture of impatience. His manner suddenly changed. He assumed the old tone of superiority which she had noticed when they first landed on the island.

"Don't deceive yourself," he said abruptly. "Some day things must be understood as they are, and it might just as well be now."

He stopped and looked at her strangely.

"What do you mean?" demanded Grace uneasily.

"I mean," he went on slowly, "that no ship will come. We shall never go back. The rest of our days must be spent here together."

He spoke with such authority, such conviction, that Grace felt that he had good grounds for what he said. Her face paled and a feeling of faintness came over her.

"How do you know?" she demanded, with tears in her eyes.

"I've known it all along," he replied.

"But didn't you say that whaling-vessels made these waters their fishing-grounds?" she persisted.

"I lied," he answered frankly. "I was sorry for you, so I invented that fiction."

"Then, the signal-fire was useless!" she cried, almost hysterical.

He nodded.

"Yes--utterly useless. I kept it up only to please you. There isn't one chance in a thousand of it ever being seen. You had to be told the truth some time."

Grace stood listening to him, completely overwhelmed, as if in a trance. In these few brief moments he had destroyed every hope which she had nourished for weeks. All her watching and waiting and praying had been in vain. She was doomed to spend the rest of her days on this lonely island--with him! Her head seemed in a whirl. She felt dizzy and faint. Then she tried to collect her thoughts to reason it out, to picture the future. Suppose it was true, suppose they had to stay there together forever. How would it affect her? What would their life be as the years went on? They would gradually change their habits. The culture and careful training of her youth would soon be forgotten. Removed from the refining influence of civilization, she and Armitage would slowly degenerate, they would revert to the semi-savage condition of their prehistoric forbears. In time, the last remnant of their clothes would go, they would be obliged to make clothes of animals skins or of plantain leaves. They would cease cooking their food, finding greater relish in devouring it raw. Their hair would grow long and matted, their hands would look like claws. They might even lose the power of speech and if, in years to come, a ship chanced to touch at the island, they would find two gibbering human-like creatures who had forgotten who they were and where they came from.

She gave a low moan of despair. Armitage approached her. She looked up at him appealingly:

"Is there no hope at all?"

He shook his head.

"No--none."

She covered her face with her hands. He could see that she was weeping.

"Don't cry," he said gently. "It's no use fretting. We can't fight fate." Tenderly he added: "Do you understand now why I said I loved you? Do you think I would have dared if I thought we should ever get away? I told you because I knew we must spend our lives in lonely solitude, and I knew we could not go on living as we have been. I want you for my wife. You cannot object. The obstacles you mentioned no longer exist."

Grace started to her feet. There was a note of defiance and alarm in her voice as she replied:

"If I must stay here and die here, I will. God's will be done. But I will live as I think is right, as I would live anywhere else. Being here alone with you makes no difference."

He folded his arms and looked at her boldly.

"It does make a difference," he said slowly and firmly. "We are here--a man and a woman--alone on a desert island amid the eternal silence of the mighty ocean. There are only two of us. We are all the world to each other. Our future days must be spent together in the closest intimacy. We cannot go on living as though we were strangers. It isn't natural. You ought to be able to see that. The objections you mentioned would keep us apart under ordinary conditions, but here the conditions are altogether different. You are no longer the courted heiress, the society favorite. You are a woman and I am a man. The artificial conventions to which you cling have no place on this island. Here we are living amid primitive conditions. Nature gave woman to man--she was intended to be his mate, his companion. I assert my rights as the male."

He spoke harshly, in a tone of command, as if he allowed her to have a say in the matter, but intended to have his way in the end, after all.

Grace found herself listening passively. She wondered why she did not burst out with indignation when he thus disposed of her as if she were his goods, his chattel. Yet, secretly, it pleased her to have him assume this tone of ownership. The men in society who had fawned upon her were tame, weak, despicable creatures, ready to lick her hand for a smile. This was a real man. He gave her orders. He told her what he wished her to do, and he said she must do it. As she listened to his rich, musical voice she thought to herself that, after all, he was right. Sooner or later it must come to that. The years would pass. They would get old together. Would it not be more natural, would not their lives be happier if they mated and had children to be the joy of their reclining years?

Armitage boldly took her hand. She did not resist. She had not the strength. This man had strangely paralyzed all her will-power.

He drew her fiercely to his breast and whispered ardently:

"I love you, Grace! I love you!"

His warm breath was upon her cheek. She felt his strong body pressed close against hers. A sudden feeling of vertigo came over her.

"I love you--I love you!" he repeated wildly, crushing her slender form in his powerful arms.

She made no attempt to resist, but remained passive in his caress, as if a prisoner who knew there was no hope of escape. Yet there was no indication of anger on her face. Why shouldn't she love this man? If their lives were to be spent together, she must be his helpmate, his companion. Besides, she knew she was lying to herself. She did love him--with all her soul. This was the man she had been waiting for, the man who would have the courage to overcome her resistance, to take her fiercely in his arms and cry "I love you--I want you!"

She closed her eyes, her head fell back. He leaned forward until his lips almost touched hers. Why did he hesitate? Why didn't he take the prize which was already his? He felt her warm body vibrating with the passion his ardor had awakened.

"I love you--I love you!" he cried. "Grace, tell me--will you be mine?"

Her eyes were closed. Her head, with its wealth of luxuriant hair all loose, fell back on his shoulder. Her face was upturned, her lips half parted. Trembling with emotion, he leaned forward. His mouth slowly approached hers for the kiss which was to seal their union, when suddenly he heard a shout.

"Ahoy there! Ahoy there!"

The sound of a human voice in that deserted spot was so utterly unexpected, so entirely unlooked for, that for a moment Armitage and Grace started back in alarm. Armitage thus rudely aroused out of his day-dreams, hurried forward to investigate.

"Ahoy there! Ahoy there!" came the shout again.

There was no mistake this time. Some one was calling, in English.

Presently they saw half a dozen sailors clambering over the rocks and running toward them. They were Americans.

Grace sank to her knees.

"Thank God!" she murmured. "Rescued at last!"

A boatswain and five sailors came up, looking with interest at Armitage and Grace.

"Who are you?" cried out the boatswain, as they approached.

Armitage went forward.

"We were wrecked on the Blue Star Steamship _Atlanta_, which went down in a hurricane on those reefs about six weeks ago."

"Passengers?" asked the boatswain.

Armitage hesitated. Then, pointing to Grace, he said:

"This lady was a cabin passenger."

"And you?" demanded the man.

"Stoker," replied Armitage grimly.

The other sailors looked at each other and laughed.

"We landed to get water," explained the boatswain, "and chanced to stumble across human foot-prints. Knowing the island was deserted, we decided to follow up the tracks. And here we are. I guess you're glad to see us."

Armitage was silent.

"Thank God!" murmured Grace. "Where is your ship? What is it?"

"The _Saucy Polly_, of Boston, Mass., and as fine a whaler as you ever saw. We're anchored on the other side of the island. I guess that's why you didn't see us."

"An American ship--God be praised," murmured Grace, clasping her hands. "Will you take us home?"

"That we will, Miss. We couldn't leave you here."

Overcome with emotion, Grace suddenly burst into tears.

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