thin, shapely shoe. With it she tapped the rug beneath, impatiently, as she faced him.
“I am listening,” she reminded him.
“Well,” he said dubiously, and still distressed, “I may as well tell the whole thing, mayn't I? I don't see any other way out of it. 'Pon honor I don't! But first of all I'll tell you I never expected to bring you here to this ship, and I had nothing whatever to do with your baggage being brought here, or your hotel bill being paid, and I have never had any desire to take advantage of you—in any way. Good heavens! I'd give this ship, right now, to have everything as it was a day or two ago.”
“Then you own it, do you?” she asked with an unescapable sarcasm in her voice.
“Yes, I own the Adventure. She's mine. My hobby. My ship. I live on her most of the time. And I've lived on her for more than three years, and I love her, too, Miss Powell. You can understand how a man can love a ship, can't your No—I don't suppose you can.”
He stopped, bent forward after one comprehensive glance about his possessions and home, and without lifting his eyes went on, as if carefully reviewing all that had taken place between them, “I saw you over there on the first night the Adventure came to this port—over there at the hotel—and—I wished that we were friends. I was very lonesome. Then I went down to the Square there in Venice and heard that boy Pietro talking to a friend, that fellow Giuseppe, and he was talking about the Crusader's Casket, and about you. And I had reason to be interested about that casket, Miss Powell, because my mother was the last woman of the Harnways, and Lemuel Harnway is my uncle and sole kinsman.”
A gasp and a movement caused him to lift his eyes. She had risen to her feet, and stood there with clenched hands, stern and indignant of face, head thrown back, and everything about her pose eloquent of anger and indignation.
“Wait! Wait!” he pleaded. “Don't be angry until you hear what I have to say. It was I, after all, who helped you steal that trinket over there, that damn'd bauble that has cost so much of enmity, and blood, and death! Senselessly! The thing that wiped out Powells and Harnways, the good of them and the bad of them alike—remorselessly, absurdly! Oh, Miss Powell, if I were a feudist as those others have been; or if I hadn't prized your friendship, appreciated and yielded to the foolish desire of your heart, that thing on which you had so set your mind, do you think I would be here to-night?” He gestured toward the Crusader's box with an emphasis of hatred. “No, if I had my way, it would have been at the bottom of the sea before ever it fell into the hands of either Powell or Harnway! It would never have been! I helped you get it because you wanted it, and I wanted you to possess anything you desired.”
For a time, with averted and downcast eyes, she weighed his words, and as an evidence of relenting walked slowly across the room and sat down in one of the easy wicker chairs. He saw his advantage and, leaning toward her, went on with his explanation, argument, and appeal.
“It may be that I did a foolish thing; but I was driven to it by my longing for your esteem. I was a coward on that night down in the gardens, there under the trees with the sea washing the old walls, when you confided to me your quest. I was afraid to tell you that I was a Harnway on my mother's side, one of that race that you fought against and hated. I was afraid that if I told you who and what I was, I couldn't ever see you again; that you would regard me as an inherited enemy, and—and—I didn't wish to be that. I craved to be at least one of your friends. I wished to at least have fair standing for something I wanted very much, your esteem and—perhaps something greater! Yes, I'm going to say it now, when everything has to be cleared up. I didn't have the courage to tell you who and what I was because I was afraid that if I did I couldn't ever be with you, ever see you, ever talk to you again. Tommie, I kept those things from you because of that! I helped to put into your hands that little golden trinket because of that. Because neither it nor the old feud mattered when all I wanted was you!”
He found himself on his feet without thought of anything save his yearning for her; found himself standing in front of her, bent forward with outstretched hands, appealing, pleading for understanding, for forgiveness, and she had leaned toward him, as if considering all that he had said. He waited in an agony of apprehension and then when she made no response whispered: “Tommie! Tommie! You mustn't blame
