"But I mean it," he urged. "Try to think of it favorably. You know the work I desire: let us work together. Life would mean so much to me with you near! And for you—it would be in the path of your own desires, to work among the poor."
For a moment it seemed like an open door to her hopes.
"I had thought of your work since you spoke of it," she said in a low voice; "and I wondered if they would let me try that—alone, of course, I mean," she added with pretty confusion. "I should like to do some good in the world. I seem so useless now. It gave me a new hope."
"And I," he urged—"do not put me apart from it!"
She had put him apart from it, she thought. She laid her hand upon the shrouds and dropped her face to it for a moment.
"Oh, I cannot tell!" she whispered.
"Do not try to tell now," he said. "Wait! It—"
Then sharply across their absorption they heard her father calling to the second mate to order in the boat. Without a word, she slipped aft.
As the boat drew near, Captain March went to the rail.
"They've left a cat aboard," he called to Medbury. "She's forward. I shouldn't like to leave even a cat like that." Then he added, as if to show that his humanity was dictated more by reason than by sentiment, "It seems unlucky—as if we'd left her."