Part 16

“If you love me,” he said deliberately; he was not shy now, though he turned away from her bowed head, and looked away over the sea sparkling in the November sunshine, “if you love me, what is there in God’s name to stand between us?”

“That,” she said, in a whisper, “just that.”

“What?”

She lifted up her head now, and looked away at the sea too, but she did not see it, for her eyes were misty with tears. And he did not see that, for he too looked seaward. Far too deeply moved were they to look each other in the face.

“You know,” she said; and in her voice the trace of the Scotch accent which still lingered there, inherited from her father, was softened by the Australian drawl, which, whatever other folks might think, sounded infinitely sweet in Harper’s ears, “you know,” she repeated again, “you know,” and there was an appeal in the soft voice, a prayer that he would not force her too far.

But he had gone too far for pity. In plain words she had told him she loved him, and in plain words now would he have named the bar that she had set up between them.

“What is it?” he asked, and his voice sounded cold and hard, “in heaven’s name, what is it!”

“You know,” she hesitated, “it is written--that--that we shall have no--no dealings--with--with the unrighteous.”

“Am I unrighteous?” he asked bitterly. “How am I unrighteous?”

“You are an unbeliever. You--you told me so yourself. You don’t believe in heaven or--or--hell--or--or--”

“In heaven or hell, don’t I? You know, Susy--good Lord!--Susy, you know you can make this world one or the other for me.

“Don’t--don’t,” she implored. “I mean you don’t think enough about your eternal salvation.”

“Child, how can I? This world is hard enough to get on in, God knows, how can I worry about the next? Who knows? There mayn’t be a next.”

“There is, there is!” she cried, eagerly. “Oh! if you would only repent while there is yet time--if you would only repent and be saved!”

“Oh, child, child, is there anything in the world I would not do for your sweet face?”

“Not for me--oh, not for me! Because--because--”

He put up his hand to stop her. The religious phrases that she had been accustomed to from her youth up, and that came naturally to her tongue, hurt him somehow as the foul-mouthed conversation of the fo’c’sle had never hurt him. From her lips he would not, if he could help himself, hear the phrases he had been accustomed to laugh at as canting and hypocritical.

“Don’t dear, don’t. I know what you are going to say. It is no good. We are so different altogether. I can’t believe--as you believe--I cannot. I ‘ll do my best to be a good man--I ‘ll never lie to you or--”

“It is no use,” she moaned, “no use at all. We cannot prevail by our own strength.”

He laughed bitterly.

“Belief is not a matter of will,” he said, “or I would believe just to please you--just because I want you more than anything in the wide world. All I can do is to be honest, and tell you I can’t believe. It need never make any difference to you, dear, never, never.”

The girl laid her face down on the hard rock again.

“And if--and if--next time your ship goes past here you were to fall from the mast, and be drowned, you think--you think you would just go out like a fire--that--that would be all.”

He kicked a stone till it fell over the edge of the cliff, and they could hear it going by leaps and bounds into the sea a hundred feet below.

“And you think,” he said, “I shall be eternally damned, tormented in fire and brimstone for ever and ever. Upon my word, Susy, mine is the kinder fate.”

“I can’t bear to think of it, I can’t bear to think of it!” she cried. “Oh! Ben, Ben! I can’t bear it!”

He made a step forward then and caught her in his arms. How could he resist the upturned face and the sweet blue eyes brimming with tears. Puritan she might be, the old Covenanter blood might be strong as ever, but she loved him--there was little doubt of that, and he clasped her close in his arms and covered her face with kisses.

“What does it matter, dear, what does it matter? Let the future take care of itself.”