‘Then I will bring you some dinner here,’ said she, and after we had conversed a little while about the heat of the weather, and about Alice Lee, the kind, motherly little woman left me.
I could not rally my spirits. The mere thought of what Captain Ladmore had said to me induced a feeling of crushing humiliation; and then there was that deep, mysterious, impenetrable emotion of loathing which I have before mentioned. Oh! it was shocking to think that my condition should be so cruelly forlorn as to challenge an offer of marriage from such a man as Mr. Harris. Nothing could have made me more bitterly understand how helpless I was, how hopeless, how lonely. I sought comfort in the recollection of Alice’s words; but not only did it miserably dispirit me to think that the dear girl must die before the wish she had expressed could take effect; I was haunted by the captain’s language—that the world was cold—that the kindly intentions of shipboard acquaintances were not often very lasting—that when people stepped ashore after a voyage the memories they carried with them speedily perished out of their minds.
I ate a little of the dinner that Mrs. Richards brought me, but I had not the heart to leave my cabin. I felt as though I had been terribly degraded and outraged, and my inability to understand why I should thus feel when all the while I was saying to myself, nothing but kindness was meant, no insult could possibly be intended—I say my inability to understand the dark, subtle protest and loathing and sense of having been wronged that was in my mind half crazed me.
Twice Mrs. Richards arrived with a message, first from Mrs. Lee and then from Alice, inviting me to their cabin; but I answered that my head ached, that I did not feel well; and when the door was closed I stood with my face at the port-hole breathing the air that floated warm off the dark stagnant waters, and watching the stars reel to the sluggish motions of the vessel.
Presently I heard the sound of a bell. I counted the chimes—they were eight; and so I knew the hour to be eight. Just then someone gently knocked on the door; it was not the stewardess’s familiar rap. I said, ‘Come in,’ and the door was opened.
‘All in the dark, Agnes?’ exclaimed the voice of Mrs. Lee, ‘what is the matter with you, my dear? Why have you not come to Alice, who has been expecting to see you all the evening?’
‘I am so low-spirited, dear Mrs. Lee, that I am not fit company for Alice,’ I answered.
‘Will you light the lamp,’ said she, ‘that we may see each other?’
I lighted the lamp and she closed the door and seated herself, viewing me steadily, and taking no notice of the interior of the berth, though this was her first visit to these steerage quarters.
‘You look pale,’ said she, ‘pale and worried. Are you really ill or is it the mind? Tell me, my dear. The mind might be making a great effort that affects you like physical sickness would, but it may be the very effort to pray for.’