Late on the third evening, however, Cotterill, descending a zigzag path to the shore, saw a man and a woman standing close together. Such sights, on Spanish Island, were so little unexpected that Cotterill did not even hesitate, but continued his steps until he was almost abreast of them. He then saw two things that disconcerted him: first, that the woman was crying, and second, that she was Diana Foley. She had her head on MacIntyre’s shoulder, and as Cotterill turned to go back he heard her sobs suddenly rise to a little desperate wail. She was calling on Ian’s name, as though he was a person already gone from her.
The next moment, almost before Cotterill was in motion again, a skirt brushed his ankles and Miss Foley ran past. For an instant he saw her plainly, her white dress glimmering, her face pale as her dress, and round her head a white ribbon. The ribbon caught his eye. It seemed, in the midst of her distress, such a freak of fancy, so womanish in its frivolity; and then — so fast did his thought run, while all the time she was still transfixed, as it were, in that instant of brushing by — he reflected again, and saw her tying the ribbon not in simple vanity, but because the time was so short. It was what a woman might do on her honeymoon, to surprise her lover with an unexpected beauty; only Diana Foley could not wait. So she had given him at once what he might not have time to discover; and like a lady painted by Lawrence — for so the ribbon revealed her — ran weeping up the path.
Cotterill turned again, for fear of overtaking her, and began once more to descend. Emotion always upset him, and in his instinctive desire to get away from it he forgot about MacIntyre and quickened his pace. But MacIntyre was still there, standing motionless in the shadow, and as Cotterill hurried past, the Scot reached out and held him. It was the gesture of the Ancient Mariner, primitive and compelling.
“You saw her?” said MacIntyre, thickly. “She’s gone back to her brother. She’s got to give him his bromide.”
Cotterill said nothing. From below came the beat of waves, from above the sound of running; then the running died away, and there was only the sea.
“I believe he’s a devil,” said MacIntyre, suddenly. “Do you know what he said to her? He didn’t ask her not to marry me, he’s too damned clever. He asked her to wait until he’s dead. And he’ll die, he says, as quickly as possible...”
And now Spanish Harbor was disturbed. It was unused to having tragedy in its midst, and found the experience unpleasant. The islanders knifed each other, of course, but they were never tragic about it; the dead had peace (as the saying went) and the bereaved had the vendetta. As for the English on the island, it was precisely to escape all unpleasantness that they ever came there; and though such information as they had — the mere broadest outline, as reported by Carmena, of a brother’s objection to his sister’s marriage — was not nearly so unpleasant as the whole entangled truth, it was quite unpleasant enough.
To do them justice, neither MacIntyre nor Diana made any call for public sympathy, or in any way obtruded their sorrows; the harm was done by their mere presence. One sight of Miss Foley’s face, one glimpse of the Scot’s tall figure as he strode restlessly along the shore, was a sufficient reminder that unhappiness existed; and on Spanish Island unhappiness was out of place. It cast a blight. It put people out. Trade, pleasure, even the climate, all lay under the shadow of the unfortunate affair. No one went to the cafés for fear of hearing people talk about it; the big one put out fewer tables, the little one, deprived of MacIntyre’s support, put out none at all. Even the islanders were affected, and whenever they saw either Maurice or MacIntyre or Miss Foley, hastily crooked fingers against the Evil Eye. The earnest desire, in fact, of everyone on Spanish Island, was that the whole trio should at once be shipped back to the mainland, there to work out their destinies in a less confined arena.
This, however, could not be, for Maurice Foley was still too weak to travel, and MacIntyre (to make matters worse) seemed equally immovable. He had never before stayed longer than a month, and was now entering on his fourth week; but instead of packing his bags he bought a further supply of soap. He was going to wire to the Morning Gazette (he told Cotterill) for extension of leave; and such was the prevailing demoralization that for the first time in years Cotterill asked a direct personal question.
“I’m their news editor,” replied MacIntyre. “In another year I’ll probably be editor-in-chief. It’s as good as a seat in the Cabinet.” But he spoke gloomily, almost absently, as though of ashes in the mouth; nor could all Cotterill’s arguments shake his decision. “If I go away now,” MacIntyre kept repeating, “I’ll never see her again. That’s a dead certainty. And as far as I’m concerned, she’s the only woman there is.”
“But as far as the Morning Gazette is concerned,” asked Cotterill tartly, “are you the only news editor?”
The Scotsman considered.
“Speaking from a thorough knowledge o’ London, Scotland, and the Provinces,” he said at last, “I should say I am. I have an exceptionally wide experience, and also what they call flair. Furthermore, I do not lose my head. Your solicitude is kind, Cotterill, but it will not be needed.”
So the message went its way, and for the next seven days the situation remained unaltered. MacIntyre tramped the shore, young Maurice suffered, and Miss Foley shopped no more in the early-morning market. She kept to her terrace, which was indeed one of the pleasantest spots on the island, rising sheer from the water in front, and at the end from the stone quay, so that on nights of dancing one could sit as in a box over the shifting crowd below. Presently Maurice appeared there too, apparently a little recovered, but paler than ever after his confinement in the dark. He had been too ill to shave, and his lip and chin were covered with a thin albino down. The islanders, if he stood above the quay, turned their backs to the wall so as not to have to see him.
Maurice, however, did not notice. He was an injured, therefore a preoccupied, man. For though his sister had voluntarily and finally surrendered all ideas of marriage, the victory was not yet complete. MacIntyre still remained on the island: to drive him away was necessarily the work of Diana, and Diana, on this last vital point, was proving unexpectedly stubborn. She would not order her lover’s departure, she would not even request it, and on the plea that it would be too painful to both, was even refusing to see him. So Maurice walked the terrace in displeasure, looking now over the water, now over the quay, till little by little, as he looked and pondered, a plan began to shape. He was pleased with it from the first, but as things turned out the final, the finishing touch was not of his own devising. It was pure accident, and it was added, about three days later, when Diana slipped on the stair and twisted her left ankle.
They took their coffee that night to the sound of a concertina. The islanders were dancing, and when the islanders danced on the quay anyone on the Foley terrace might well have danced too. But to neither Maurice nor his sister was the music inviting. Diana, indeed, could not even stand, and was lying with her feet up in a long wicker-chair. Carmena had carried it out for her, and was now down in the kitchen making a tea-leaf poultice.
“You needn’t worry, though,” said Diana, moving her swathed foot, “it isn’t your China. I told her I thought Indian would be more propitious.”
With a slow, reflective glance Maurice got up from his chair to lean against the parapet. He chose the angle between the two walls, so that looking down to the left he could see the quay, covered with dancers, and looking down to the right, the waters of the bay. The moment had come, and it tasted sweetly.