“That’ll come, sir.”
“You know, captain, we may be taking our friend back.”
“Yes, sir. The lady, poor thing. She must be suffering now, sir. We’re anxious. But nothing to her, poor thing, wondering if that man’s alive.”
“I’m wondering if we are making more trouble for her by bringing him back to her.”
“He’s not been brought yet, sir.”
“In three days, captain.”
“Maybe so, sir. If you ask me, I say no. She’ll never see him again. I ask Mr. Perrin that. One always comes back to Mr. Perrin. They call him a fool, forward there; but he sees things shrewder than some of these wise ones that tried to drown the duck. He said, ‘No. You’ll never see him again. He’s married to a Spanish girl, and changed his religion, by this time.’ One never believes Mr. Perrin till one finds he was right after all. Then it’s too late.”
“Perhaps,” Margaret said. “He may be right. That may be it. He may be killed in the assault. He may have left the town. We may never see him again. It may be the end. I wonder what sort of life it is going to be for her if it is the end.”
“Life goes on much the same way, sir. Women feel it more than men; they live so cramped. But I always say a man’s a bigger thing than anything he makes. If he makes trouble he’d ought to be big enough to bear it.”
“And if the trouble’s made for him?”