"Not to stay?"
"That's what Steele says. Mart's in bad shape."
He searched her face with earnest gaze. "I can't understand that. He seemed so happy and so much better, too."
"He's been a good deal worse than he let on, or else he fooled himself. The doctor found his heart jumping cogs right along."
"And he positively ordered you to go below?"
"Yes—he scared me. He said Mart might die any minute—if he stayed."
In the silence that followed his face became almost as white as her own, for he understood and shared her temptation. At last he said, slowly, "And you are going with him?"
"Yes, I must. Don't you see I must?"
He understood, too. Haney had refused to go without her, and to stay would be to shorten his life.
"How did the Captain take it?" he asked with effort.