Nan stared at the girl incredulously.
“Did he say so?” she gasped.
Anny shrugged again. “Nay, not in words,” she said carelessly, “but he said, ‘Go back to the Ship and I will come,’ so you see nothing will change.”
The elder woman seized the girl by the shoulders.
“You’re mad, Anny,” she said fiercely. “Don’t you see he’ll take you away? When the Spaniard comes to the Ship, he comes for you.”
Anny sprang to her feet, her eyes wide with fear and amazement. This view of the affair had not presented itself to her before.
“Take me away?” she repeated wonderingly, and then, as the full meaning of the words came to her, a little terrified scream escaped her. “I won’t go,” she said quickly, “I won’t go—leave this Island? Leave the Ship? Leave Hal? No, I won’t go—I——” She stopped suddenly and turned to the old woman, an expression of horror on her face.
“There was none who could stay him wedding me,” she said slowly, her eyes growing larger and more frightened at every word. “There was none who could stay him wedding me; there will be none to stay him taking me away. Oh!—--”
She dropped down on the beaten earth floor, shuddering violently.
Nan looked down at her for a few seconds and then out of the door over the flat marshes to the hilly wooded island beyond.