In the morning, while the Rose was sailing along the coast, she went to the captain and requested that she and her husband might be taken as near Appleford as possible, that they might get back in their boat.
"My cousin will remain on board, Captain Daniel," she said. "She will go with you across the Channel, and land at the first French port."
Captain Daniel whistled.
"You settle things easily, Mrs. Day," he said, with a half smile; "how do you know I'll take her?"
"You'll take her for my sake and your own," said Mrs. Day quietly. "For mine because we are old friends, for yours because if she landed in England there'd be questions asked about the Rose of Devon that might be awkward to answer."
"And how am I to know that I can trust her?" he said.
"Because she has to trust you," said Mrs. Day. "Captain Daniel, my cousin has just come through a great trouble, and she's as anxious as you are that no one should know that she was ever aboard the Rose. If you don't mention it when you get back to England, she won't, wherever she is. You needn't require any oath; she's one whose word is as good as her bond; she's a lady and different to me. Just land her at the first place on the other side you touch, and say nothing. She'll pay for her passage——"
"Thank you, Mrs. Day," said the captain. "I don't want the poor woman's money, and she's welcome to the run. As to keeping quiet, well, I think we can do that as well as she can; and if she will say nothing about the Rose, the Rose will say nothing about her. We know how to keep a secret, I think! If she's got in trouble and wants to show a clean pair of heels, well, I reckon we've been in the same plight, and may be, shall be again. Anyway, whether or no, Captain Daniel isn't the man to turn his back upon a woman in distress!"
Mrs. Day gave him her hand with a simple dignity which would not have shamed the first lady of the land.