"I wish I had died—with mother—on the ship!"
"What do you mean?"
"She came here."
"Who?"
"That woman. She hates me."
"Mademoiselle Rochet? Did she dare to come here too?"
"She forced herself in. I was frightened. I couldn't stop her. She—oh, why did I not die with my mother?"
"What did she say?"
"She said—oh, how can I tell you? Father knew it: she said he did. Sam knew it, too. I never knew; I never knew; and they were so cruel—oh, so cruel!—not to tell me. I could have gone away somewhere; and—oh, it is so hard to know it now!"
"You say your father knew it."
She turned awway from him and began to cry softly to herself.
"What is it, my dear? What troubles you?"
"You"
"I? What have I done? You know I love you."
"I know that; and yet—you—you believe it."
At this instant the screw stopped.
Neither spoke in the strange, terrifying silence that meant so much. Both listened intently. What new disaster was at hand?
Suddenly she started up, white, haggard, and trembling.
"Hark! I hear it! the buoy! It is the buoy that marks the grave of that ship."
The judge was fairly alarmed, and stood up by the port to listen.
Then came faint and far away through the breathless silence the clang of a bell.
"The ship is in trouble. They have reversed the engine to stop her."
"It is no matter. The sea is calling me again, as it does in my dreams. It's no matter now. Father—Sam—will never know how I died. I'm almost—almost glad it is so near. I can go home—to my mother—and my father."
A little glass on the marble wash-stand rattled. The ship was struggling, perhaps for her life.
Then, after a long, breathless pause, the distant bell clanged again. Then returned that freezing silence.
"The ship has stopped. Hark! they are signalling some other vessel. I think we have escaped the danger, whatever it is. Come, let us go on deck."
He saw that while she was in this excited state of mind it would not be wise to attempt to reason with her. It were better, for the time, to ignore her fears and try to divert her attention to other matters till she was calmer. As for this woman,—this Madame Potard-Rochet,—he would probe her acts and motives till he found the truth. That she had some motive in her cruelty he clearly recognized. What that motive might be he would find out the moment his family were safe at home in New York.
"Let us go up-stairs, Mai, and see what is going on."
