Will you give me that pledge?"
"Yes, if such a pledge will relieve your mind, Miss Standish."
He was almost brutally incurious. As he reached for a cigar, he did not
see the sudden movement she made, as if about to fly from his room, or
the quicker throb that came in her throat. When he turned, a faint flush
was gathering in her cheeks.
"I want to leave the ship," she said.
The simplicity of her desire held him silent.
"And I must leave it tonight, or tomorrow night--before we reach
Cordova."
"Is that--your problem?" he demanded, astonished.
"No. I must leave it in such a way that the world will believe I am
dead. I can not reach Cordova alive."
At last she struck home and he stared at her, wondering if she were
insane. Her quiet, beautiful eyes met his own with unflinching
steadiness. His brain all at once was crowded with questioning, but no
word of it came to his lips.
"You can help me," he heard her saying in the same quiet, calm voice,
softened so that one could not have heard it beyond the cabin door. "I
haven't a plan. But I know you can arrange one--if you will. It must
appear to be an accident. I must disappear, fall overboard, anything,
just so the world will believe I am dead. It is necessary. And I can not
tell you why. I can not. Oh, I _can not_.
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