The Box with Broken Seals by Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips), 1866-1946

"I value Jerry's life and future at more than that," she declared. "Will you make a fresh start, Mr. Jocelyn Thew, with twice that sum of money to your credit?"

He shook his head, but there was a curious change creeping into his face. For the first time she saw how soft a man's dark-blue eyes may sometimes become. The slight trembling of his parted lips, too, seemed to unlock all the cruel, hard lines of his face. He had suddenly the appearance of a person of temperament--a poet, even a dreamer.

"I could not take money from you, Miss Beverley," he said, "or from any other woman in the world."

"Upon no conditions?" she whispered softly.

"Upon no conditions," he repeated.

The breeze had dropped, and twilight had followed swiftly upon the misty sunset. There was something a little ghostly about the light in which they sat. "I am stifled," she declared abruptly. "Come and walk."

They paced up and down the deck once or twice in silence. Then he paused as they drew near their chairs.

"Miss Beverley," he said, "in case this should be the last time that we talk confidentially--so that we may put a seal, in fact, upon the subject of which we have spoken to-night--I would like to tell you that you have made me feel, during this last half-hour, an emotion which I have not felt for many years. And I want to tell you this. I am a lawbreaker. When I told you that there was a warrant out against me at the present moment, I told you the truth. The charge against me is a true one, and the penalty is one I shall never pay. I must go on to the end, and I shall do so because I have a driving impulse behind, a hate which only action can soothe. But all my sins have been against men and the doings of men. You will understand me, will you not, when I say that I can neither take your money, nor accept your friendship after this voyage is over? You, on your side, can remember that you have paid a debt."

She sank a little wearily into her chair and looked out through the gathering mists. It seemed part of her fancy that they gathered him in, for she heard no sound of retreating footsteps. Yet when she spoke his name, a few moments later, she found that she was alone.

CHAPTER XII

Throughout the night reigned an almost sepulchral silence, and when the morning broke, the _City of Boston_, at a scarcely reduced speed, was ploughing her way through great banks of white fog. The decks, the promenade rails, every exposed part of the steamer, were glistening with wet. Up on the bridge, three officers besides the captain stood with eyes fixed in grim concentration upon the dense curtains of mist which seemed to shut them off altogether from the outer world. Jocelyn Thew and Crawshay met in the companionway, a few minutes after breakfast.

"I can see no object in the disuse of the hooter," Crawshay declared querulously. "Nothing at sea could be worse than a collision. We are simply taking our lives in our hands, tearing along like this at sixteen knots an hour."

"Isn't there supposed to be a German raider out?" the other enquired.