The Tidal Wave and Other StoriesDell, Ethel M. (Ethel May)
General
The Tidal Wave and Other Stories
Dell, Ethel M. (Ethel May)
Short stories
As one in a dream she stood on deck and watched India slipping below the
horizon. Her restlessness was subsiding at last. She was conscious of an
intense weariness, greater than any she had ever known. As soon as that
distant line of land had disappeared she told herself that she would go
and rest. Her fellow passengers had for the most part settled down. They
sat about in groups under the awning. A few, like herself, stood at the
rail and gazed astern, but there was no one very near her. She felt as
if she stood utterly alone in all the world.
Slowly at last she turned away. Slowly she crossed the deck and began to
descend the companion. A knot of people stood talking at the foot. They
made way for her to pass. She went through them without a glance. She
scarcely even saw them.
She went to her cabin and lay down, but she knew at once that sleep
would not come to her. Her eyes burned as though weighted with many
scalding tears, but she could not weep. She could only lie staring
vaguely before her, and dumbly endure that suffering which she had
vainly fancied could never again be her portion. She could only
strive--and strive in vain--to shut out the vision of the man she loved
standing alone at the altar waiting for the woman who had played him
false.
The dinner hour approached. Mechanically she rose and dressed. She did
not shrink from meeting the eyes of strangers. They simply did not exist
for her. She took her place in the great dining saloon, looking neither
to right nor left. The buzz of conversation all around her passed her
by. She might have been sitting in utter solitude. And all the while the
misery gnawed ever deeper into her heart.
She rose at last, before the meal was ended, and went up to the great
empty deck. She felt as if she would stifle below. But, up above, the
wash of the sea and the immensity of the night soothed her somewhat. She
found a secluded corner, and leaned upon the rail, gazing out over the
black waste of water.
What was he doing, she wondered. How was he spending this second night
of misery? Had he begun to console himself already? She tried to think
so, but failed--failed utterly.
Irresistibly the memory of the man swept over her, his gentleness, his
chivalry, his unfailing kindness. She was beginning to see the whole
bitter tragedy by the light of her repentance. He had loved her, surely
he had loved her in those old days when she had tricked him in sheer,
childish gaiety of soul. And, for her sake, that her suffering might be
the briefer, he had masked his love. She had never thought so before,
but she saw it clearly now.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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