"It's almost as if the sea, grown old, had gone to sleep with the going down of the sun, isn't it?" she said.
"The sea isn't always like this, though," said Stowell.
"No, it can be very cruel, can't it? Rolling on and on, with its incessant, monotonous roar through the ages! What heartless things it has done! Millions and millions of women have prayed and it has no heed to them."
"How can I do it? How can I do it?" Stowell was asking himself.
"Oh, what a thing it is to be a sailor's wife!" said Fenella. "Only think of her with her little brood, in her cottage at Peel, perhaps, when a sudden storm comes on! Giving the children their supper and washing them and undressing them, and hearing them say their prayers and hushing them to sleep, and then going downstairs to the kitchen, and listening to the roar of the sea on the castle rocks, and thinking of her man out here in the darkness, struggling between life and death."
Stowell knew, though he dare not look, that she was brushing her handkerchief over her eyes.
"Victor," she said, "don't you think women are rather brave creatures?"
"The bravest creatures in the world!" he answered.
"I knew you would say that," said Fenella, in a low voice. "And that's why I always think of you as their champion, fighting their battles for them when they are wronged and helpless."
Stowell felt as if he were choking. He could not go on with this hypocrisy any longer. He must tell her now. It would be like committing suicide, but what must be, must be.