“I must go in and tell her,” I said.
“No. Don’t do that,” said that wise young man. “Have you made up your mind?”
“Yes, I have,” I answered. “But she’s reasonable.”
“Still,” he argued, “the old girl is sure to say that nothing of the kind is necessary. The captain told her that he was coming back for tea. What could we say to that? We can’t explain the true state of the case, and if you persist in going, it will look like pig-headed folly on your part.”
He threw his writing-desk open for me.
“Write to her. Write down your arguments—what you have been telling me. It’s a fact that the door stands open for a few hours. As to the rest,” he pursued, with a weary sigh, “I’ll do the lying to pass it off with Mrs. Williams.”
Thus it came about that, with only two flimsy bulkheads between us, I wrote my first letter to Seraphina, while Sebright went on deck to make arrangements to send me ashore. He was some time away; long enough for me to pour out on paper the exultation of my thought, the confidence of my hope, my desire to have her safe at last with me upon the blue sea. One must seize a propitious moment lest it should slip away and never return, I wrote. I begged her to believe I was acting for the best, and only from my great love, that could not support the thought of her being so near O’Brien, the arch-enemy of our union. There was no separation on the sea.
Sebright came in brusquely.
“Come along.”
The American brigantine was berthed by then, close astern of the Lion, and Sebright had the idea of asking her mate to let his boat (it was in the water) put ashore a visitor he had on board. His own were hoisted, he explained, and there were no boatmen plying for hire.