‘What cannot you forget?’ said he gravely.
‘I am not a passenger,’ said I, looking down.
‘What is in your mind when you pronounce the word passenger?’ he asked.
‘A passenger is one who pays,’ I answered.
‘How do you know that?’ said he.
‘I know it,’ said I, after thinking a little; ‘because Miss Lee told me that her mother had hired the cabin for the round voyage.’
‘Ha!’ he exclaimed, exchanging a look with Mrs. Lee. ‘Well?’ he continued, slightly smiling, ‘you will consider yourself a passenger who does not pay. You are the guest of the ship. Some ships are hospitable and liberal hostesses, and the owners of the Deal Castle would wish her to be one of them. Do, pray, be perfectly easy on that score.’
I bowed my head, murmuring a ‘Thank you.’
‘There is one consoling part to be borne in mind,’ said he, addressing Mrs. Lee; ‘one fact that should tend to console and soothe this lady: it is this—she is single. She might have been a married woman driven by disaster from her husband, and, worse still, from her children. But put it that she has parents—it may not be so, who can tell that her parents are living? But to be sundered from a mother and a father to whom, in the course of time, one is certain to return, is not like being torn from one’s children. This is a consideration to console you, Miss C——.’
‘Do not cry,’ said Mrs. Lee, taking my arm. ‘I fully agree with the captain. Only think how it would be if, instead of being single, you were a mother cruelly and strangely taken away from your children.’