Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/47

27 truth; every word in my letter is the literal truth. I have never looked at anybody else—to love them—but oh! oh! my love for you has been a poor thing. It didn’t prevent me from going to the bad. You loved me; and yet I came to this!”

He groaned again. She said nothing, but caught his hand and pressed it. The pressure he returned.

“Oh, Claire,” he cried, “it was madness, I think! I was mad at leaving you and Old England, perhaps for ever. And the ship wouldn’t sail, Claire, the ship wouldn’t sail! When I went to the office, thinking I had about three days, they told me she would be three weeks. I walked out of that office swearing I’d find some other; but all I found was the road to the bad. Drink and dice and cards! You asked me to tell you all. I tell you all I can. I tell it you to set you against me and make you hate me for ever. That is the kindest thing.... Claire, Claire, why don’t you strike me? Why don’t you scorn me and leave me to my fate? Oh, oh, I could bear it better than this!”

Her warm arms were about him. They clasped him tight. He could hear her heart and his own beating close together.

Suddenly she stood apart from him, with small clenched fists glittering with rings. He held his breath.

“The man who is at the bottom of all this,” said she: “who is he? How was it? You speak of him in your letter: tell me more.”

Tom shrugged his shoulders.

“What is the use? The thing is done; it’s past mending; and it was my own miserable fault. Most of my money went in fair play and—riot! He only relieved me of the residue. Yet I tell you, Claire” (with sudden