"O, never, never! I have lost all that could make me happy!"
"You have been unfortunate, Florette, but you have not been guilty."
"Alas! I have been guilty; it is that which grieves me now more than aught else. No, I should have died rather than have suffered myself to become the pirate's mistress."
"Yet you were compelled, Florette."
"Ah! lady, you would not have been compelled; you would have sooner died—would you not?"
The flashing eye of Julia, and the warm flush that covered her cheek and neck, answered the poor girl. She would not trust herself to answer in words.
"I see you would, dear lady—and so should I have done. No, I am guilty. I could have saved my honor in the arms of death; the pirate's dirk lay on the table in my cabin—that would have saved me; the deep, deep sea was all around me—there, too, I might have found an honorable safety."
"My dear Florette, do not think of these things now. You are sorry for the past, whether you have done a great wrong, or a small, it is certainly not one which the good God cannot forgive."
"But the world will not; and, lady, I loved the pirate-captain; harsh as he was to all else, to me he was kind—and now he is dead. O! William, William!"
"Do not weep for him, Florette."