Mary sat down in an armchair, and fanned herself with a pocket-handkerchief.

"Thinking of the right thing to say always makes me hot," she remarked.

"Well, if by the right thing you mean the strong thing, you certainly discovered it," replied Morris, looking at her with affectionate admiration.

"I know; but it had to be done, dear. He's losing a lot of money, which is mere waste"--here Morris groaned, but asked no questions--"besides,"

and her voice became earnest, "I will not have him talking to you like that. The fact that one man is the father of another man doesn't give him the right to abuse him like a pickpocket. Also, if you are so good that you put up with it, I have myself to consider--that is, if we are all to live as a happy family. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," said Morris. "I daresay you are right, but I hate rows."

"So do I, and that is why I have accepted one or two challenges to single combat quite at the beginning of things. You mark my words, he will be like a lamb at breakfast to-morrow."

"You shouldn't speak disrespectfully of my father; at any rate, to me,"

suggested the old-fashioned Morris, rather mildly.

"No, dear, and when I have learnt to respect him I promise you that I won't. There, don't be vexed with me; but my uncle Richard makes me cross, and then I scratch. As he said the other day, all women are like cats, you know. When they are young they play, when they get old they use their claws--I quote uncle Richard--and although I am not old yet, I can't help showing the claws. Dad is ill, that is the fact of it, Morris, and it gets upon my nerves."

"I thought he was better, love."

"Yes, he is better; he may live for years; I hope and believe that he will, but it is terribly uncertain. And now, look here, Morris, why don't you go home?"

"Do you want to get rid of me, love?" he asked, looking up.

"No, I don't. You know that, I am sure. But what is the use of your stopping here? There is nothing for you to do, and I feel that you are wasting your time and that you hate it. Tell the truth. Don't you long to be back at Monksland, working at that aerophone?"

"I should be glad to get on with my experiments, but I don't like leaving you," he answered.

"But you had better leave me for a while. It is not comfortable for you idling here, particularly when your father is in this uncertain temper.

If all be well, in another couple of months or so we shall come together for good, and be able to make our own arrangements, according to circ.u.mstances. Till then, if I were you, I should go home, especially as I find that I can get on with my uncle much better when you are not here."

"Then what is to happen after we marry, and I can't be sent away."

"Who knows? But if we are not comfortable at Monk's Abbey, we can always set up for ourselves--with Dad at Seaview, for instance. He's peaceable enough; besides, he must be looked after; and, to be frank, my uncle hectors him, poor dear."

"I will think it over," said Morris. "And now come for a walk on the beach, and we will forget all these worries."

Next morning the Colonel appeared at breakfast in a perfectly angelic frame of mind, having to all appearance utterly forgotten the "contretemps" of the previous afternoon. Perhaps this was policy, or perhaps the fact of his having won several hundred pounds the night before mollified his mood. At least it had become genial, and he proved a most excellent companion.

"Look here, old fellow," he said to Morris, throwing him a letter across the table; "if you have nothing to do for a week or so, I wish you would save an aged parent a journey and settle up this job with Simpkins."

Morris read the letter. It had to do with the complete reerection of a set of buildings on the Abbey farm, and the putting up of a certain drainage mill. Over this question differences had arisen between the agent Simpkins and the rural authorities, who alleged that the said mill would interfere with an established right of way. Indeed, things had come to such a point that if a lawsuit was to be avoided the presence of a princ.i.p.al was necessary.

"Simpkins is a quarrelsome a.s.s," explained the Colonel, "and somebody will have to smooth those fellows down. Will you go? because if you won't I must, and I don't want to break into the first pleasant holiday I have had for five years--thanks to your kindness, my dear John."

"Certainly I will go, if necessary," answered Morris. "But I thought you told me a few months ago that it was quite impossible to execute those alterations, on account of the expense."

"Yes, yes; but I have consulted with your uncle here, and the matter has been arranged. Hasn't it, John?"

Mr. Porson was seated at the end of the table, and Morris, looking at him, noticed with a shock how old he had suddenly become. His plump, cheerful face had fallen in; the cheeks were quite hollow now; his jaws seemed to protrude, and the skin upon his bald head to be drawn quite tight like the parchment on a drum.

"Of course, of course, Colonel," he answered, lifting his chin from his breast, upon which it was resting, "arranged, quite satisfactorily arranged." Then he looked about rather vacantly, for his mind, it was clear, was far away, and added, "Do you want: I mean, were you talking about the new drainage mill for the salt marshes?" Mary interrupted and explained.

"Yes, yes; how stupid of me! I am afraid I am getting a little deaf, and this air makes me so sleepy in the morning. Now, just tell me again, what is it?"

Mary explained further.

"Morris to go and see about it. Well, why shouldn't he? It doesn't take long to get home nowadays. Not but that we shall be sorry to lose you, my dear boy; or, at least, one of us will be sorry," and he tried to wink in his old jovial fashion, and chuckled feebly.

Mary saw and sighed; while the Colonel shook his head portentously.

n.o.body could play the part of Job's comforter to greater perfection.

The end of it was that, after a certain s.p.a.ce of hesitation, Morris agreed to go. This "menage" at Beaulieu oppressed him, and he hated the place. Besides, Mary, seeing that he was worried, almost insisted on his departure.

"If I want you back I will send for you," she said. "Go to your work, dear; you will be happier."

So he kissed her fondly and went--as he was fated to go.

"Good-bye, my dear son," said Mr. Porson--sometimes he called him his son, now. "I hope that I shall see you again soon, and if I don't, you will be kind to my daughter Mary, won't you? You understand, everybody else is dead--my wife is dead, my boy is dead, and soon I shall be dead.

So naturally I think a good deal about her. You will be kind to her, won't you? Good-bye, my son, and don't trouble about money; there's plenty."

CHAPTER VIII

THE SUNK ROCKS AND THE SINGER

Morris arrived home in safety, and speedily settled the question of the drainage mill to the satisfaction of all concerned. But he did not return to Beaulieu. To begin with, although the rural authorities ceased to trouble them, his father was most urgent that he should stay and supervise the putting up of the new farm buildings, and wrote to him nearly every day to this effect. It occurred to his son that under the circ.u.mstances he might have come to look after the buildings himself; also, that perhaps he found the villa at Beaulieu more comfortable without his presence; a conjecture in which he was perfectly correct.

Upon the first point, also, letters from Mary soon enlightened him. It appeared that shortly after his departure Sir Jonah, in a violent fit of rage, brought on by drink and a remark of his wife's that had she married Colonel Monk she "would have been a happy woman," burst a small blood-vessel in his head, with the strange result that from a raging animal of a man he had been turned into an amiable and perfectly harmless imbecile. Under so trying a domestic blow, naturally, Mary explained, Colonel Monk felt it to be his duty to support and comfort his old friend to the best of his ability. "This," added Mary, "he does for about three hours every day. I believe, indeed, that a place is always laid for him at meals, while poor Sir Jonah, for whom I feel quite sorry, although he was such a horrid man, sits in an armchair and smiles at him continually."

So Morris determined to take the advice which Mary gave him very plainly, and abandoned all idea of returning to Beaulieu, at any rate, on this side of Christmas. His plans settled, he went to work with a will, and was soon deeply absorbed in the manufacture of experimental receivers made from the new substance. So completely, indeed, did these possess his mind that, as Mary at last complained, his letters to her might with equal fitness have been addressed to an electrical journal, since from them even diagrams were not lacking.

So things went on until the event occurred which was destined profoundly and mysteriously to affect the lives of Morris and his affianced wife.

That event was the shipwreck of the steam tramp, Trondhjem, upon the well-known Sunk Rocks outside the Sands which run parallel to the coast at a distance of about five knots from the Monksland cliff. In this year of our story, about the middle of November, the weather set in very mild and misty. It was the third of these "roky" nights, and the sea-fog poured along the land like vapour from an opened jar of chemicals.

Morris was experimenting at the forge in his workshop very late--or, rather early, for it was near to two o'clock in the morning--when of a sudden through the open window, rising from the quiet sea beneath, he heard the rattle of oars in rowlocks. Wondering what a boat could be doing so near insh.o.r.e at a season when there was no night fishing, he went to the window to listen. Presently he caught the sound of voices shouting in a tongue with which he was unacquainted, followed by another sound, that of a boat being beached upon the shingle immediately below the Abbey. Now guessing that something unusual must have happened, Morris took his hat and coat, and, unlocking the Abbot's door, lit a lantern, and descended the cement steps to the beach. Here he found himself in the midst of ten or twelve men, most of them tall and bearded, who were gathered about a ship's boat which they had dragged up high and dry. One of these men, who from his uniform he judged to be the captain, approached and addressed him in a language that he did not understand, but imagined must be Danish or Norwegian.

Morris shook his head to convey the blankness of his ignorance, whereupon other men addressed him, also in northern tongues. Then, as he still shook his head, a lad of about nineteen came forward and spoke in broken and barbarous French.

"Naufrage la bas," he said; "bateau a vapeur, naufrage sur les rochers--brouillard. Nouse echappe."

"Tous?" asked Morris.

The young man shrugged his shoulders as though he were doubtful on the point, then added, pointing to the boat:

"Homme beaucoup blesse, pasteur anglais."

Morris went to the cutter, and, holding up the lantern, looked down, to find an oldish man with sharp features, dark eyes, and grizzled beard, lying under a tarpaulin in the bottom of the boat. He was clothed only in a dressing gown and a blood-stained nightshirt, groaning and semi-unconscious.