"Oh, where is your clever head which enabled you to triumph over the mutineers? Has the shipwreck served you as it has the poor steward?"
"My darling——"
"Were you to work twenty years, what money could you save out of this poor profession of the sea that would justify your pride—your cruel pride?"
I was about to speak.
"What money could you save that would be of service when you know that I am rich, when you know that what is mine is yours?"
"Not much," said I.
"Would you have loved me the less had you known me to be poor? Would you not have risked your life to save mine though I had been a beggar? You loved me because—because I am Mary Robertson; and I love you because you are Edward Royle—dear to me for your own dear sake, for my poor dead father's sake, because of my love for you. Would you go away and leave me because you are too proud to make us both happy? I will give you all I have—I will be a beggar and you shall be rich that you need not leave me. Oh, do not speak of being poor! Who is poor that acts as you have done? Who is poor that can enrich a girl's heart as you have enriched mine?"
She had raised her voice unconsciously, and overhearing herself, as it were, she stopped on a sudden, and bowed her head with a sob.
"Mary," I whispered, "I will put my pride away. Let no man judge me wrongly. I talk idly—God knows how idly—when I speak of leaving you. Yes, I could leave you—but at what cost? at what cost to us both? What you have said—that I loved you as Mary Robertson—is true. I know in my own heart that my love cannot dishonour us—that it cannot gain nor lose by what the future may hold in store for me with you, dear one, as my wife."
"Now you are my own true sailor boy!" was all she said.