"Your hard, prescribed, bounden duty."
"You could not expect anything more of me. When we married it was agreed between us that each should be satisfied with a sensible amount of friendship."
He has risen, and is gazing at her keenly, searchingly.
"That is true; you are right," he says, bitterly. "The sad thing about it is that I had forgotten it!"
"I cannot understand how you--I must say I never have observed--that you----"
"Indeed? You never have observed that I have long ceased to keep my part of our compact!" the captain exclaims. "Really? Women are fabulously blind when they do not choose to see. Do you suppose I should have allowed the reins to be taken from my hands, do you suppose I should have resigned my authority over you, have lost the right of disposing of my own child, and have abandoned my profession, if--if I had not fallen in love with you like a very school-boy! There! now despise me doubly for my confession, and until you see me stifling in the mire, like poor Franz Meineck, console yourself with the conviction that you have done your duty by me."
He makes her a profound bow, then turns and leaves the room.
CHAPTER XXX.
[A SLEEPLESS NIGHT.]
"Until you see me stifling in the mire, like poor Franz Meineck, console yourself with the conviction that you have done your duty by me."