“But what, in God’s name, possessed you?  You have already wrecked your own life and now you’ve wrecked hers.  She doesn’t love you; she hasn’t the least idea what it means beyond what she has read in novels.  The world isn’t real yet; she hasn’t comparisons by which to govern her acts.  I am a physician first, which gives the man in me a secondary part.  You have just passed through rather a severe physical struggle; just as previously to your collapse you had gone through some terrific mental strain.  Your mind is still subtly sick.  The man in me would like to break every bone in your body, but the physician understands that you don’t actually realize what you have done.  But in a little while you will awake; and if there is a spark of manhood in you, you will be horrified at this day’s work.”

Spurlock closed his eyes.  Expiation.  He felt the first sting of the whip.  But there was no feeling of remorse; there was only the sensation of exaltation.

“If you two loved each other,” went on the doctor, “there would be something to stand on—­a reason why for this madness.  I can fairly understand Ruth; but you...!”

“Have you ever been so lonely that the soul of you cried in anguish?  Twenty-four hours a day to think in, alone?...  Perhaps I did not want to go mad from loneliness.  I will tell you this much, because you have been kind.  It is true that I do not love Ruth; but I swear to you, before the God of my fathers, that she shall never know it!”

“I’ll be getting along.”  The doctor ran his fingers through his hair, despairingly.  “A hell of a muddle!  But all the talk in the world can’t undo it.  I’ll put you aboard The Tigress to-morrow after sundown.  But remember my warning, and play the game!”

Spurlock closed his eyes again.  The doctor turned quickly and made for the door, which he opened and shut gently because he was assured that Ruth was listening across the hall for any sign of violence.  He had nothing more to say either to her or to Spurlock.  All the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not undo what was done; nor kill the strange exquisite flower that had grown up in his own lonely heart.

Opals.  He wondered if, after all, McClintock wasn’t nearest the truth, that Ruth was one of those unfortunate yet innocent women who make havoc with the hearts of men.

Marriage!—­and no woman by to tell the child what it was!  The shocks and disillusions she would have to meet unsuspectingly—­and bitterly.  Unless there was some real metal in the young fool, some hidden strength with which to breast the current, Ruth would become a millstone around his neck and soon he would become to her an object of pity and contempt.

There was once a philanthropist who dressed with shameful shabbiness and carried pearls in his pocket.  The picture might easily apply to The Tigress:  outwardly disreputable, but richly and comfortably appointed below.  The flush deck was without wells.  The wheel and the navigating instruments were sternward, under a spread of heavy canvas, a protection against rain and sun.  Amidship there was also canvas, and like that over the wheel, drab and dirty.