“No, Charles. Don’t say that. You. At Springer’s Key. You can begin again there. With better men.” “Springer’s Key will be a failure, too,” he said bitterly. “Oh, Olivia,” he added, going off into an hysterical laugh, “that water gets on my nerves. There were two upset boats, and they can’t right them.” “Charles,” she said, frightened. “You’re hurt. You’re hit again.” “I think my old wound has broken out,” he said. “Lie down,” she answered, rising swiftly, to lay the relics on the table. “I’ll see to it at once. Why didn’t I think?” “I’ll get Perrin,” he said. “Don’t you. You mustn’t. Oh, Olivia, you’ve enough without me.” She ripped the coat of soiled linen with the scissors in her chatelaine. The old negro, coming in with chocolate, brought hot water for her. Together they dressed the wound with balsam and pitoma leaf, binding it with Indian cotton. The steward brought in fruit and bread. They ate and drank together, mechanically, not as though they wanted food. “Olivia,” Margaret said, “you are in great sorrow. Some of it, Olivia, perhaps all of it, is due to me. I want you. I want you to feel that I feel for you. Feel deeply. Oh, my God. I’m sorry for you. You poor woman.” “Charles,” she said, “you mustn’t think. You’ve no right. You mustn’t think that. That what has happened was due to you. Don’t, Charles. You won’t, I know. I see too clearly what happened. I see your mind, Charles, all along. I understand.” She knelt very swiftly and kissed his hand. “There,” she said, very white. “I understand.” Margaret closed his eyes, then looked at a gleam of flame far distant, and at the blue band on the bows of Tucket’s sloop, plunging the sea into milk within hail of him. “You were right, Olivia,” he said, in a shaking voice. “I shall never reap my plantations yonder.” “No,” she answered. “Nor I.” There was silence between them for a little while. “Charles,” she added, “we both had Darien schemes.” “Yes, Olivia.” “They came to nothing. Because. There. We were too wild to see what, what we were building with.” “Yes, Olivia. And you reap sorrow. And I dishonour.” “Not that, Charles. We reap the world.” “Ah no, Olivia. This is the end of everything. For me it is.” “No, Charles,” she said. “We were living in one little corner of our hearts, you and I. In fool’s paradises. We were prisoners. This is not the end. We only begin here.” He sighed, thinking of the shame of the morning’s work in Tolu. “My father’s sword,” he thought. “In that cause.” “Charles,” she asked, “haven’t you. Something more to tell me?” He thought for a moment, dully, wondering in his blurred brain if she wished to hear more of the battle. “No,” he said. “No. That is the end.” She stood up, facing him, her great eyes looking down on him. “I must go now to the wounded,” she said softly. “Edward and the doctor will be wanting me. God bless you, Charles.” “God bless you, Olivia. And comfort you.” Before she left the cabin she turned and spoke again.