The closed door

A narrator listens as a shipmate named Gorham recounts the wreck of the Shearwater and a long-buried personal scandal: seaman Harry Owen, once in love with Kitty Melrose, married Sheila McTodd and thereafter led a troubled, secretive life. Gorham describes surviving the wreck, recognizing Kitty on board, and suspects the wreck may have been intentional to conceal or force a confrontation. The account traces Owen's frustrated longing, social consequences, restraint, and the tangled loyalties among friends, while presenting a mystery about love, regret, and the motives behind the catastrophe.