"If we were alone--" I said, and there stopped, for I had said too much. No doubt if she had not been here we should have been off with Dalfin at once with light hearts.
"Then I do stay you," she said, catching my meaning.
Whereon it came to me that I had better say what I meant outright.
"We need no better reason for staying. That we have you to care for is good, and in that care is more honour to us than we might win in fighting in a quarrel which is not ours."
"Little honour can you win here, Malcolm," she said half sadly, and yet smiling. "Yet I know what you mean, and I thank you both."
Now, a thought which had been growing up in my heart for these many days came to the surface, as it were, and I had almost spoken it. I knew that if this charge were taken from me I should be lonely indeed, and that it were honour enough for me to care for and guard Gerda through all my life as the one thing that I could care for. I think that it would have been strange if this had not come to me in these long hours of companionship with her, seeing what she was in all respects, whether as she stood here on the windy shore with her fair hair tossed by the sea breeze, fair and full of health and life, or as I had seen her on the decks of the doomed ship, brave and steadfast, with the cruel terror of the pirates on her.
But here and now I could say nothing of this that was so near to me. I had naught to offer her but my poor presence, no future, and no home. And maybe there were long days of companionship and service due from me, and I would not that there should be the least thing said to mar the ease with which that went so far. One can be wise at times, when the comfort of another is in the balance, as it were.
Moreover, how could I tell that some of her longing for home might not be also from pain of separation? And that was now no happy thought to me. Well, I must wait and find out all that. If it was in my power that longing should be stilled, and then I might know the best and worst of all that might lie before me.
Thoughts like these do not grow up all at once as I have set them down. At this time they seemed to gather from the many times they had passed through my mind, and rank themselves against my words. So it came to pass that I was silent, and was glad presently that so I had been.
"Look!" said Gerda suddenly, pointing out to the far eastward, "yonder are sails on the skyline."