Reeve shuddered. No matter how much he longed to, he couldn’t step away from the rail or the memory of what he’d seen. In twenty years of whaling he’d watched more than one man die, that was true, but he’d never witnessed anything remotely like what had happened that day.

The first mate tugged at his arm. “Cap’n, we’re settin’ sail for Sydney—is that all right?”

Reeve managed a brisk nod, but that was all. His muscles were still as taut as though they’d been cast of iron, and there was a queer buzzing sound in his head. Underlying this were the shrieks of men dying a nightmare death.

It took several men to pry Reeve’s hands loose from the railing. They led him, like a child, to his quarters below deck.

“We’ll put in at Auckland,” he heard the first mate say to the other men. “We’re closer there than Sydney. The cap’n needs a doctor.”

“It be ’is mind that’s needin’ treatment, mate, and there ain’t no doctors for that,” responded someone else.

Reeve wanted to lift his hand, to tell them that he was all right, that he didn’t need a doctor, but he found that he could neither speak nor move. He was trapped inside himself.

“We’re going to Auckland,” the first mate insisted, and though Reeve could see Jacob’s face looming over him, he couldn’t respond in any way. Even the flicker of an eyelash was beyond him.

“I’ve seen this before,” put in a swabby standing at the foot of Reeve’s berth. “Some never get over it.”

The sailor’s words echoed through Reeve’s mind; the thought of staying this way for the rest of his life filled him with desperate fear. Maggie, he cried, from the depths of his soul. Maggie.

The days passed quickly for Maggie, she was working so hard on the play, but the nights were long and filled with doubts and fear. She was sure that she was pregnant now, and once she was in bed, she was tormented by wild imaginings. Almost invariably, when she did manage to sleep, she dreamed that she was playing the role of Kate, her stomach burgeoning out in front of her, while the audience booed and hissed and threw vegetables.

When a week had gone by, Maggie began to look for Reeve, but he didn’t arrive, though more presents and more notes did. The gifts were always frivolous and expensive, and the notes always mentioned Jamie.

Ten full days had slipped by when Philip let himself into Maggie’s dressing room late one afternoon without bothering to knock. He was holding a piece of yellow paper tightly in one hand and the expression on his face was ghastly.