He was to her a
living embodiment of the All Good. Almost any suggestion, no matter
how reckless, he might have made, would have found an echo in her
heart and the will to do it.
To few is vouchsafed that knowledge which makes all clear before the
mental vision. Tunis Latham's perspicacity did not compass this
thing. He did not grasp the psychological moment, as we moderns call
it, and consummate there and then the only reasonable and righteous
plan that it was given him to complete.
The captain of the _Seamew_ was a young man very much in love. He
did not question this fact at all. But in his wildest imaginings he
could never have believed that the girl beside him on this bench
returned his passion, that she would even listen to his
protestations of affection. Not for a long time, at least.
Nor had he ever considered marriage as possible in any case when
there was not love on both sides. Although he commiserated Sheila
Macklin's situation most deeply, he could not dream of those depths
of despair into which the girl's heart had sunk before he came upon
the scene of action. He did not understand that she was at that
bitterly desperate point where she would grasp at any means of
rescue which promised respectability.
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