‘And you do not understand why this should be?’ said she.
‘No, because the man means kindly. He approached me even with delicacy through the captain. There is nothing in him which should make me loathe him.’
‘And still his offer fills you with horror and disgust?’
‘Yes.’
She surveyed me for awhile, lightly running her eye over me with an expression of inquiry. She then said, ‘Do you remember what that gipsy woman told you?’
I reflected and answered, ‘She told me much that I remember.’
‘She told you,’ said she, ‘that you were a married woman. What else she said matters not. But she told you, Agnes, that you were married, and that you have left a husband who wonders and grieves over your absence.’
I drew a deep tremulous breath not knowing what meaning she had in her mind.
‘From what you have now told me,’ she continued, ‘I am disposed—mind, my dear, I only say disposed—to believe that the gipsy woman may be right.’
‘From what I have now told you!’ I echoed.