"No. I think I should have heard of it if he had thought of leaving us to-day."
Nan Merridew fell back upon her pillow.
"I wish he would go on board," she said petulantly, "if he is going."
"On board?" queried Mrs. Kitto; and she set down her work.
"Isn't he to be one of the officers on the ship we are all going home by?"
"I didn't know of it," said Mrs. Kitto, with equal embarrassment and surprise.
"But he is," declared the girl, with all an invalid's impatience. "I understood that from papa the day he came; he had spoken to the agents, or he was going to speak to them, and Denis—I mean Mr. Dent—was to have the best berth they could give him. I do wish he would go on board. I—I almost wish he hadn't saved my life!"
And she tossed her face to the wall, for it was burning as it had burned so often since her deliverance.
"It's meeting him again," said Mrs. Kitto to herself; "and she does care for him, or she would mind less." It made it all the harder to ask aloud, "Did your father say he had succeeded, dear?"
"We have never mentioned Mr. Dent again," said Nan to that, quite haughtily.