The sentence remained unfinished, and tears streamed afresh down cheeks already swollen with weeping.
"Your name, girl?" inquired the stranger, eagerly.
"Barbara Iverk," she replied, evidently astonished at the question. He seized her arm, and, while gazing earnestly in her face, murmured in a tone of positive tenderness,—
"Are you happy?"
"I praise the Lord for his goodness! ever since I have been here, I have been most happy; but my dear lady, who was so kind to me——" Again her tears returned.
"You do not know me?—But you could not." Hugh Dalton gradually relaxed his hold, and pulled from his bosom a purse heavy with Spanish pieces—he presented it to the girl, but she drew back her hand and shook her head.
"Take it, child, and buy thee a riding-hood, or a farthingale, or some such trumpery, which thy vain sex delight in."
"I lack nothing, good sir, I thank ye; and, as to the coined silver, it is only a tempter to the destruction of body and soul."
"As it may be used—as it may be used," repeated the sailor quickly; "one so young would not abuse it."
"Wisdom might be needed in the expenditure; and I have heard that want of knowledge is the forerunner of sin. Besides, I ask your pardon, good sir, but strangers do not give to strangers, unless for charity; and I lack nothing."