无人生还39
时间：2026-03-19 03:05:35
（单词翻译:单击）
IV
Vera had been restless all the morning. She had avoided Emily Brent with
a kind of shuddering aversion.
Miss Brent herself had taken a chair just round the corner of the house
so as to be out of the wind. She sat there knitting.
Every time Vera thought of her she seemed to see a pale drowned face
with seaweed entangled in the hair…A face that had once been pretty—
impudently pretty perhaps—and which was now beyond the reach of pity
or terror.
And Emily Brent, placid and righteous, sat knitting.
On the main terrace, Mr Justice Wargrave sat huddled in a porter’s
chair. His head was poked down well into his neck.
When Vera looked at him, she saw a man standing in the dock—a young
man with fair hair and blue eyes and a bewildered frightened face. Ed-
ward Seton. And in imagination she saw the judge’s old hands put the
black cap on his head and begin to pronounce sentence…
After a while Vera strolled slowly down to the sea. She walked along to-
wards the extreme end of the island where an oldman sat staring out to
the horizon.
General Macarthur stirred at her approach. His head turned—there was
a queer mixture of questioning and apprehension in his look. It startled
her. He stared intently at her for a minute or two.
She thought to herself:
‘How queer. It’s almost as though he knew…’
He said:
‘Ah, it’s you! You’ve come…’
Vera sat down beside him. She said:
‘Do you like sitting here looking out to sea?’
He nodded his head gently.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s pleasant. It’s a good place, I think, to wait.’
‘To wait?’ said Vera sharply. ‘What are you waiting for?’
He said gently:
‘The end. But I think you know that, don’t you? It’s true, isn’t it? We’re
all waiting for the end.’
She said unsteadily:
‘What do you mean?’
General Macarthur said gravely:
‘None of us are going to leave the island. That’s the plan. You know it, of
course, perfectly. What, perhaps, you can’t understand is the relief!’
Vera said wonderingly:
‘The relief?’
He said:
‘Yes. Of course, you’re very young…you haven’t got to that yet. But it
does come! The blessed relief when you know that you’ve done with it all
—that you haven’t got to carry the burden any longer. You’ll feel that too,
someday…’
Vera said hoarsely:
‘I don’t understand you.’
Her fingers worked spasmodically. She felt suddenly afraid of this quiet
old soldier.
He said musingly:
‘You see, I loved Leslie. I loved her very much…’
Vera said questioningly:
‘Was Leslie your wife?’
‘Yes, my wife…I loved her—and I was very proud of her. She was so
pretty—and so gay.’
He was silent for a minute or two, then he said:
‘Yes, I loved Leslie. That’s why I did it.’
Vera said:
‘You mean—’ and paused.
General Macarthur nodded his head gently.
‘It’s not much good denying it now—not when we’re all going to die. I
sent Richmond to his death. I suppose, in a way, it was murder. Curious.
Murder—and I’ve always been such a law-abiding man! But it didn’t seem
like that at the time. I had no regrets. “Serves him damned well right!”—
that’s what I thought. But afterwards—’
In a hard voice, Vera said:
‘Well, afterwards?’
He shook his head vaguely. He looked puzzled and a little distressed.
‘I don’t know. I—don’t know. It was all different, you see. I don’t know if
Leslie ever guessed…I don’t think so. But, you see, I didn’t know about her
any more. She’d gone far away where I couldn’t reach her. And then she
died—and I was alone…’
Vera said:
‘Alone—alone—’ and the echo of her voice came back to her from the
rocks.
General Macarthur said:
‘You’ll be glad, too, when the end comes.’
Vera got up. She said sharply:
‘I don’t know what you mean!’
He said:
‘I know, my child. I know…’
‘You don’t. You don’t understand at all…’
General Macarthur looked out to sea again. He seemed unconscious of
her presence behind him.
He said very gently and softly:
‘Leslie…?’
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