"Well," she said, with a curious coldness, "what use shall you make of
your special knowledge?"
"I intend," I said, "to respect his wish, that your relationship to him
be kept unknown, unless you declare otherwise."
"That is reasonable. If he had always been as reasonable! And," she
continued, "I do not wish the relationship to be known: practically there
is none. . . . Oh! oh!" she added, with a sudden change in her
voice, "why did he do as he did, and make everything else
impossible--impossible! . . . Send me, or give me the packet, when you
wish: and now please leave me, Dr. Marmion."
The last few words were spoken with some apparent feeling, but I knew she
was thinking of herself most, and I went from her angry.
I did not see her again before the hour that afternoon when we should
give the bodies of the two men to the ocean. No shroud could be prepared
for gunner Fife and able-seaman Winter, whose bodies had no Christian
burial, but were swallowed by the eager sea, not to be yielded up even
for a few hours. We were now steaming far beyond the place where they
were lost.
The burial was an impressive sight, as burials at sea mostly are.
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