"I 'ave no idea, sir. Orders, sir. I was to hinform the saloon passengers as how they were to go on deck, and women and children into boats."
"You hunt up Miss Huttle's maid, and have her tell Miss Huttle to be sure to wrap up warm. Be sure she gets that right--to wrap up warm. Two sets of everything all round. Got that right?"
And so it has come to write the adieu which I would dread to have to speak. Four days only have I known you, but a man may build his life anew in four days, and this last adventure of mine has been such as in my visionary boyhood days I used to mark out for myself in rosy dreams.
I have the little snapshot you gave me yesterday. I will have it with me to the end, and your face in it will be the last thing I kiss this side of eternity. And so good-by, dear heart, and don't worry for me. Who lives by the sword, et cetera. It had to come to some such ending, I suppose, though rather a joke, isn't it, to be lost on an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic in these days?
To-day with you I saw the sun go down 'twixt purple bars, and what is the little matter of dying to that? And it is a consolation to know you will not mourn me. Good night, dear heart, and may God have ever a tender eye on you.
He sealed the envelope, and very carefully addressed it: "Miss Helen Huttle," placed it in his inside coat-pocket, kissed the little photograph, and placed that also in his inside coat-pocket.
He gazed about to see what else. His top-coat lay where he had last thrown it--across the edge of the berth. He shook his head at it, and from his wardrobe took a heavy ulster, scanned it approvingly and put it on. He hauled his steamer trunk out from under his berth, and from a corner of it dragged a thick wallet. He ran his thumb along the edge of the bills within it. Large banknotes they were mostly. He stuck the wallet into his hip pocket. The handle of a magazine pistol peeped up at him. He took it up, laid it flat in the palm of his hand, shook his head, and tossed it back. He took one more look around the room, waved his hand to the walls, and stepped out into the passageway.
A hurrying steward almost bumped into him. It was Hames. "Miss Huttle was told, sir."
"Good! Now, something else. Later on Miss Huttle will be going into a boat. Before she goes, be sure you give her this letter. Not now--no. But up on deck, just before she goes."