"Dickory," said she, "you said that exactly as you spoke when you told me that if I let myself drop into the darkness, you would be there."
"And you shall find me there now," said he; "always, if you need me, you shall find me there!"
Dame Charter had been standing and watching this interview, her foolish motherly heart filled with the brightest, most unreasonable dreams. And why should she not dream, even if she knew her dreams would never come true? In a few short weeks that Dickory boy had grown to be a man, and what should not be dreamed about a man!
As Kate ran by the open door towards her uncle's apartments, Dame Charter rose up, surprised.
"What have you been saying to her, Dickory?" she exclaimed. "Do you know something we have not heard? Have you been giving her news of her father?"
"No," said the son, who had so lately been a boy, "I have no news to give her, but I am going to get news for her."
She looked at him in amazement; then she exclaimed: "You!"
"Yes," he said, "there is no one else. And besides I would not want any one else to do it. I am going to Bridgetown in the brig which brought us here; it is a little sail, and when I get there I will find out everything. No matter what has happened, it will break her heart to think that her father deserted her without a word. I don't believe he did it, and I shall go and find out."
"But, Dickory," she said, with anxious, upraised face, "how can you get back? Do you know of any vessel that will be sailing this way?"
He laughed.