“You have been such, but you are not so now. You have long forsaken the gang; you are forgotten, and supposed to be dead. You may change your name; but being changed in your life, it will only be known to me.”
“And to Barry, too, Margaret; and then to his brother, and to numbers of others, who will know me. I was recognized this very night.”
“What, if you change your name?”
“My name is changed, but not my nature. I am a smuggler still!”
“No, William, no—you cannot be! You are in the service of an honest man, though a foreigner.”
“No, Margaret, I am not. You see before you the notorious Hudson. I am a smuggler still!”
It was now poor Margaret’s turn to tremble, and she felt more than language can speak. She had heard of Hudson—Captain Hudson, as he was called—but had no idea that her lover was that, or such a man. She felt a revulsion amounting to sickness, a giddiness overcame her, and she felt as if she must fall to the earth. Half carried, half urged, half pulled along, she was unconsciously moving, with her eyes fixed fully upon the boat, and approaching it, and she had no power to resist—a sort of trance-like senselessness seemed to overpower her; and yet she felt that hand, knew that form, and saw the waters and the boat, and had no energy or impulse to resist. Her heart was so struck with the deadliness of grief and despair, that the nerves had no power to obey the will, and the will seemed but a wish to die. We cannot die when we wish it, and it is well for us we cannot. Happy they who do not shrink when the time comes appointedly; thrice happy they who welcome it with joy, and hope, and love!
Margaret revived a little before she reached the boat, and resisted. The firm grasp of the smuggler was not, however, to be loosed.
“You do not mean to force me away, William?”