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"Because he is in my way. Reason enough for me."
The door knob was in my hand. All I had to do was to open it and shoot the man dead. But what after that? His men would swarm down and murder me before the eyes of my love. And she would be left alone with a pack of wolves which had already tasted blood.
It was the hardest ordeal of my life to keep quiet while the fellow pressed his hateful suit, pushed it with the passionate ardor of the Slav, regardless of her tears, her despair, and her helplessness.
For an hour--to make a guess at the time--she fought with all the weapons a woman has at command, fending him off as best she could with tears and sighs and entreaties.
Then I heard a man stumbling down the ladder and moved aside. If he should turn my way I was a dead man, for he must come plump against me. He knocked on the door of the cabin.
Bothwell opened and whispered with him a moment, then excused himself to his cousin, locked the door, and followed the sailor up to the deck.
I unlocked the door softly and walked into the cabin. By the dim light of a hanging lantern I made out a rough room furnished only with two bunks, one above the other, a deal table, and two cheap chairs.
Evelyn had not heard me enter. She was standing with her back to me, leaning against the woodwork of the bed, her face buried in one arm. Despair and weariness showed in every line of the slight, drooping figure.
She must have heard me as I moved. She turned, the deep shadowy eyes gleaming with fear. Never have I seen the soul's terror more vividly flung to the surface.
I suppose that for a moment she could not believe that it was I, and not Bothwell. Perhaps she thought the ghost of me had come to say farewell to her.
She stared at me out of a face from which the color was gone, the great eyes dilating as the truth came home to her. From her throat broke a startled, stifled little cry.
"You!"
I took her in my arms and her tired body came to me. The