"This is on condition that you sleep," he said.
"It is a waste of happiness to sleep," I sighed ecstatically. "I want to lie awake to revel in it."
"If I see you lying awake an hour hence," he rejoined, pretending to be stern, while his voice was so full of tenderness that he could scarcely control it, "I shall send you back to your cabin, Polly."
So I did not let him see it. But for several hours, when he was not looking, I watched his dear figure moving to and fro, and the sea, and the stars, with the smoke from the funnel trailing over them, and revelled in full consciousness of my utter bliss.
Even now—after all these years—I get a sort of lump in my throat when I think of it.
CHAPTER III.
A PAGE OF LIFE.
Does love fly out of the window when poverty walks in at the door? No, no—of course not! Only when love is an imitation love, selfish and cowardly, as true love can never be. I am sure ours stayed with us always, no matter how cramped and starved. We never felt a regret for having married each other, even when the practical consequences were most unpleasant—never, never, not for a single instant. And yet—and yet—well, it is all over now. One need not make one's self gratuitously uncomfortable by reviving memories of hardships long gone by, and never likely to be repeated.
Another thing. Is it fair that a sea-captain should have such miserable wage for such magnificent work? He has no play-hours, like other working men, no nights' rest, no evenings at home, no Saturday holidays—no Sundays even—and no comfort of his wife and family. He is exposed to weather that you would not turn a dog into, and to fatigue only measured by the extent of human endurance; and accepts both without a thought of protest. He has the most awful responsibilities continually on his mind, as to which he is more inflexibly conscientious than any landsman living; and he is broken and ruined if an accident happens that he is but technically to blame for and did his utmost to prevent. Yet all he gets in return is a paltry twenty pounds a month! At least, that is what Tom got—with an English certificate and a record without a flaw. It is because sailors are not money-grubbers, as landsmen are, that the money-grubbers take advantage of them.