The captain bowed his head affirmatively.
‘And will you also command him, Captain Ladmore,’ I exclaimed, ‘not to whisper a syllable of what has passed?’
‘You may trust him to hold his tongue,’ said he smiling.
‘Were the news of his having made me this offer through you to reach the passengers I could never hold up my head again; I could never bear to quit my berth.’
‘The secret shall be entirely ours,’ said the captain.
I hurriedly made my way through the saloon, entered my berth in the steerage, closed and bolted the door, and flung myself into my bunk. I had wept in the captain’s cabin, but I was now too angry, too confounded to shed tears, though I longed for the relief of them. There was a sort of horror too upon me, such a feeling as might possess a woman who had met with a shocking insult; and yet I knew that no insult had been offered to me, so that the horror which was upon me was as inscrutable as ever the emotion had been at other times.
There is no occasion for me to refine upon my condition. The psychologist might well laugh at my speculations; yet I will venture to say this, that when I look back and recollect my feelings at this time, then, knowing that I was without memory to excite in me the detestation with which I had listened to Captain Ladmore’s communication of Mr. Harris’s offer, I cannot doubt that the wild antagonism of my heart to it must have been owing to the memory of instinct—a memory that may have no more to do with the brain than a deep-rooted habit has to do with consciousness.
But not to dwell upon this. I sat motionless on my bed for I know not how long a time, thinking and thinking; I then bathed my face and cooled my hands in water, and stood at the open window to let the draught caused by the rolling of the ship breathe upon me, and thus I passed the afternoon.
Shortly before the first dinner-bell rang Mrs. Richards knocked on my door. I bade her enter. She tried the handle, and found the bolt shot. This was unusual, and on entering she gazed at me with attention. She asked me what the matter was, and I answered that the heat had caused my head to ache, and that I had been lying down. No doubt she perceived an expression on my face which told her that something more than a headache ailed me, but she did not press her questions. She had come to say that Mrs. Lee sent her love, and wished to know what had become of me during the afternoon.
‘I hope to sit with Miss Lee this evening,’ said I; ‘but I shall not dine at the dinner table.’