"You shall stay as long as you please, miss, and the longer you stay the better the Rose of Devon will like it."
"I am very grateful," she said in a low voice; "but I will not stay after we reach a French port. Mrs. Day has told you——" She stopped, and the captain took it up.
"Mrs. Day has told me nothing more than that you are in trouble, miss, and I reckon that's enough. There's no need for you to say anything! Me and my ship and my men are at your service, and if there's one place more than another you'd like to land at, say the word, and there the Rose goes, fair wind or foul!"
Then, without waiting for any response, he touched his hat and went aft.
As he had spoken so Captain Daniel acted.
The boy was ordered to make the cabin as comfortable as possible. An awning was rigged up on deck to provide shelter for her, and the cook taxed his inventive faculties to the utmost in the concoction of dishes which he deemed suitable to an invalid lady. The rough sailors lowered their voices as they went about their work, and even put out their pipes when she came on deck.
Their kindness, and the beauty of sea and sky, did more toward Margaret's recovery than fifty doctors could have effected, and by the time the Rose had sighted the French coast her face had lost something of its wanness, and a faint color had found its way to her cheeks.
She spent most of her time sitting on deck looking out to sea, trying to piece together the broken fragments of her shattered life.
For the future she had no plans, and could form none. Of what use or value could her life be to her when the man she had loved and trusted had broken her heart and left her desolate and utterly hopeless?
But as they neared Brest on the Brittany coast, she felt she must come to some decision.