I
was going to send in my papers, and come back to Apia, and marry her as
Englishmen are married. While I remained in the navy I could not, as you
know, marry her. It would be impossible to an English officer. I intended
to come back and be regularly married to her."
"You say that now," was the cold reply.
"But it is the truth, the truth indeed. Nothing that you might say could
make me despise myself more than I do; but I have told you all, as I
shall have to tell it one day before a just God. You have spared me: He
will not."
"Gait Roscoe," she replied, "I am not merciful, nor am I just. I intended
to injure you, though you will remember I saved your life that night by
giving you a boat for escape across the bay to the 'Porcupine', which was
then under way. The band on board, you also remember, was playing the
music of La Grande Duchesse. You fired on the natives who followed. Well,
Sam Kilby was with them. Your brother officers did not know the cause of
the trouble. It was not known to any one in Apia exactly who it was that
Kilby and the natives had tracked from Alo's hut."
He drew his hand across his forehead dazedly.
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