Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-12-25
THE SEA HAWK
BY RAFAEL SABATINI
published by Arrangement With First National Pictures
Inc. CopyrGhted by Houghton- Mfflin Company

n HE looked at him and she seemed to
measure him with her unwayering
'You speak of the past?" she echoed, her
voice low. you speak of the past and to
me? You dare?"
ut is that we might speak of it together
that | have fetched you all the way from
England; that at last l may tell you things
| was fool to have kept from you five years
ago; that we may resume a conversation
which you interrupted when you dismissed
me-
81 did YOU a monstrous injury, no doubt
she answered him, with bitter irony. Il was
surely wanting in consideration. 1t would
have become me better to have smiled and
fawned upon my brothers murderer"
81 swore to you then that I was not his
murderer" he reminded her in voice that
shook.
and I answered that you lied"
aye, and on that YOU dismissed me--the
word Of the man whom you professed to
love, the word Of the man to whom you had
given your trust weighing for naught with
you"
when I gave you my trust" she retorted
II did so in ignorance of your true self, in
a headstrong wilful ignorance that would
not be guided by what all the world said of
you and your wild ways. For that blind will
fulness have been punished, perhaps L
deserved to be-
"Les-all lies." he stormed. "Those ways
of mine--and God knows they were none so
wild, when all is said-I abandoned when
came to love you. No lover since the world
began was ever cleansed, purified, so
sanctifed by love was t.
Spare me this at least" she cried on a
note of loathing.
spare your" he echoed. What shall
| spare your"
"The shame of it all; the shame that
is ever mine in the reflection that for sea-
son [ believed l loved you"
He smiled.
eff you still feel shame it shall over
whelm you ere | have done For you shall
hear me out. Here there are none to inter
rupt us, none to thwart my sovereign will.
Reflect then, and remember. Remember
what pride you took in the change you had
wrought in me- Your vanity welcomed that
fattery, that tribute to the power of your
beauty. Yet all in a moment upon the
paltriest grounds you believed me the MUIR
derer of your BROTHER
The paltriest grounds?" she cried pro-
testing almost despite herself.
$50 paltry that the justices at Truro
would not move against me-" r
Because" she cut in, they accounted
that you had been sufficiently provoked. Be-
cause you had not sworn to them as you
swOre to me that no proyocation should ever
drive you to raise your hand against my
brother. Because they did not realize how
false and how fOrsworn you WERE
He considered her a moment. Then he
took turn the terrace. Lionel crouch
ing ever by the rose tree was almost en-
tirely forgotten by him now.
"God give me patience with you!' he said
at length. 81 need it. For | desire you to
understand many things this night. | mean
you to see how just is my resentment; how
just the punishment that is to overtake you
for what you have made of my life and per-
ha nc of NV Inst poip
other who is dead knew me for innocent"
They knew you for innocent?" There
was scornful amazement in her tone. "Were
they not witnesses of the quarrel betwxt
you and Peter and of your oath that you
would kill him."
THAT was an oath sworn in the heat of
anger. Afterwards l bethought me that he
was your brother
"Afterwards?" said She after you had
murdered him?"
81 say again" Oliver replied calmly, chat
| did not do this thing"
And | say again that you lie"
He considered her for long moment;
then he laughed.
"Have you ever" he asked, known a
man to lie without some purpose? Men lie
for the sake of profit, they lie out of cow
ardice or malice, or else because they are
vain and vulgar boosters. l know of no
other causes that will drive a man to false
hood, save that-ah yes-" and he flashed
a sidelOng glance at LioneI-"save that
sometimes man will lie to shield another,
out Of self-sacrifice. There you have all the
spurs that urge man to falSehood. Can
any of these be urging me tonight? Re-
fleet. Ask yourself what purpose | could
serve by lying to you now. Consider fur
Their that | have come to loathe you for your
unfaith; that | desire naught so much as to
punish you for that and for all its bitter
consequences to me; that / have brought
you hither to exact payment from you to the
uttermost farthing. What end then can |
serve by falsehood?"
"All this being So what end could you
serve by TRUTH" she countered
"TO make you realize to the full the in
justice that you did To make you under
stand the wrongs for which you are called
to pay. To prevent you from conceivng
yourself martyr; to make you perceive in
all its deadly bitterness that what now comes
to you is the inevitable fruit of your own
faithlessness."
Sir oliver, do you think me fool?" she
asked him
Madam, | dO-and worse" he answered
aye that is clear" she agreed scornfully
''since even now you waste breath in at
tempting to persuade me against ny reason
But words will not blot out facts. And
though you talk from now till the Day of
Judgment no word of yours can efface those
bloodstains in the snow. that formed a trail
from that poor murdered body to your own
door; no word of yours can eXtingush the
memory of the hatred between him and YOU
it stifle the recollection of the public voice
demanding your punishment What had YOU
to set against all that, to convince me that
your hands We're clean. to induce me to keep
the trOth which-God forgive mel had
plighted to YOU"