"Nor I. I loved you then, although I scarcely acknowledged the truth even to myself. I went back to my berth to lie awake, and think until morning. A new world had come to me, and when the dawn broke, I knew what it all meant—that my heart was yours. I cared nothing because you were a prisoner, a bound slave under sentence. We are all alike, we Fairfax's; we choose for ourselves, and laugh at the world. That is my answer, Geoffry Carlyle; I give you love for love."
"'Tis a strange place for such a pledge, with only hope before us."
"A fit place to my mind in memory of our life together thus far, for all the way it has been stress and danger. And what more can we ask than hope?"
"I would ask an opportunity denied me—to stand once more in honor among men. I would not be shamed before Dorothy Fairfax."
"Nor need you be," she exclaimed impetuously, her hands pressing mine. "You wrong yourself, even as you have been wronged. You have already done that which shall win you freedom, if it be properly presented to those in power. I mean that it shall be, once I am safely back in Virginia. Tell me, what are your plans with—with this schooner?"
"To beach it somewhere along shore, and leave it there a wreck, while we escape."
"I suspected as much—yet, is that the best way?"
"The only way which has occurred to me. The men insist on it with good reason. They have been pirates, and might be hung if caught."
"And yet to my mind," she insisted earnestly, "that choice is most dangerous. I am a girl, but if I commanded here, do you know what I would do?"
"I shall be glad to hear."