"Only a thousand miles more!" called Paul suddenly.
As he spoke Emily saw him rise quickly from the table and come toward her. The mask of joyousness which he wore was but a mask to her. It might have deceived anybody else, but this girl had come to understand him and read him as not even the woman who had borne him could have done. There was a constraint upon him. With each noon's tale of a shortening journey a relentless tide had seemed to carry him further and further away from her. After the first flush of the homeward flight he had sung no more of his sea songs unless she asked him. He had a guard up. A secret fear seemed to be gnawing at his heart. By instinct alone she read that he loved her; not by external signs.
"This is a smart little packet," Paul went on. "Just think of it—one thousand nine hundred and eighty miles in fifteen days! That's moving with nothing above a crippled mainto'-galluns'l on her! We did eleven knots for a stretch when that puff struck us at dawn this morning."
"'She's a saucy wild packet; she's a packet of fame,
She belongs in New York and the Dreadnaught's her name.'"
With this couplet, singing it in her rich voice, as she had learned it from Paul, Emily made her answer. She did it with a bravery and pretense of light-heartedness which she was far from feeling.
"At this rate we'll not be spending another Sunday aboard the Daphne, partner. Eh?"
"No," she said and she kept her eyes averted as he took the wheel from her. She looked out over the lee rail and across the sea. Just over the end of the spanker boom, where it wheeled low down on the southwestern horizon, a white glint fixed her gaze. For a second she thought it was a large bird. Guiltily she held her breath as she discovered it to be a sail. She closed her eyes and afterwards she believed that in that moment she had prayed that Paul might not see it. But he had followed her gaze. Her heart went cold as she heard him cry: "Sail ho!"
A second later the Daphne was shaking in the wind.
"Here, Emily, take the wheel! Keep her shaking just as she is!"
Paul drew Emily to the wheel as he spoke and ran to the rail.