CHAPTER LI

We sailed on the Persia, 376 feet long, 45 feet of beam, gross tonnage 3300, horsepower 4000, speed 14 knots an hour.  As Dorothy knew nothing of ocean sailing craft she was unable to share in my wonder at all the splendor and comfort of this wonderful steamer.

From the first Dorothy was ill.  Our boy Reverdy too became seasick.  As I was not affected in the least I had the care of both of them.  A part of the time the sea was very rough.

One night when we had been on the water three days Dorothy called to me.  She had been greatly nauseated during the afternoon.  A sudden return of the discomfort had seized her.  I arose quickly and made a light.  The boat was rocking.  A stiff breeze was blowing.  We were headed through a great darkness.  Dorothy was deathly pale.  She was unable to bring up anything more and was convulsed with retching and coughing.

She grew suddenly quiet, her eyes closing, her lips parting.  “Dear,” she murmured.  I waited for what she would say.  She had become at once limp in my arms.  I shook her gently, pressed my ear to her breast.  I could hear no heart beat.  I called her, laid her down, wetted a towel, and applied it to her head.  She did not rouse.  I went from the stateroom to find the physician.  He came hurriedly.  But Dorothy was dead.  That word of endearment was her last.

Without, the sea and the sky were as black as a sunless cave.  The water rolled around us, pitching the boat forward and sideways.  The timbers creaked, lamps jiggled, the hallways seemed to undulate like snakes.  But the heart of the Persia pumped with rhythmic regularity.  The passengers were asleep, or in various festivities, in cabins or in the dining room.  Nothing was stayed for this tragedy which had come to me.  On we went through the darkness!  Dorothy was lying where I had placed her, her head turned to one side, her face pale in the last sleep.  I aroused little Reverdy.  He looked at his mother, kneeled by the berth, and sobbed.  The physician took us out of the cabin, locked the door, and put us in another.  I tucked little Reverdy in bed again; then I went out to look, at the storm, the dark water, the impenetrable sky.

Back of me was America, flattened out like a map in my imagination, lost and sunk like old Atlantis.  I sent my mind across it from New York to Chicago, from Chicago to California.  What was it?  Earth, a continent containing an embattled and disappointed Douglas, millions of struggling people.  Ahead of me, over thousands of miles of water, an unknown Italy.  I lived over all my life, but mostly now all my life with Dorothy, from those first days in Jacksonville when I was under a cloud because of Zoe and the killing of Lamborn, to our days in Nashville; the ecstasy of first love, our walks and restings among the Cumberland hills, the kindness of Mother Clayton, her joy when she learned that Dorothy had