t the damp pages I thought of how I would place it in my dear love's
hand and leave him to read all that my tongue could never say to him!

I slept for some hours and woke refreshed. Then came a message from the
captain, asking if I would see him. I was eager to be out, for many
reasons, the chief being my desire to see him from whom I had been so
long parted; it was his face I sought first among the many familiar ones
that crowded round me. Besides Captain Brayne I recognized other
officers of the _Carolina_ as the same with whom I had sailed from the
Downs nearly two years ago. All my fellow prisoners--save one--greeted
me joyfully and kindly. But that one missing face--where was it?

It was on my tongue to ask for Mr. Rivers; then, of a sudden, it came
over me _how_ we had parted. So! and he still believed me--that thing
which I had shown myself. He had nursed his doubts for two whole days
and nights, and now he would not even come forward to touch my hand and
wish me joy of my escape. It seemed to me I caught glances of pity
passing between one and another of the lookers-on. Did they wait to see
how Margaret Tudor would bear her lover's apathy? A jilted maid!

There was a mist before my eyes; but I smiled and said little gracious
words of thanks to each and all of them, and wished in my heart that I
was dead. Oh, my love! whatever doubts you may have had of me were paid
back that cruel moment in full measure. I recalled some of the hard
speeches I had heard from the embittered Spanish woman, and I thought
within myself, All men are made after the same pattern!

Captain Brayne and Master Collins and good old Captain Baulk of the
_Three Brothers_ had been in earnest conversation for some moments; and
now the _Carolina's_ commander came to me and took me gently by the
hand, leading me aside.

"Mistress Margaret," he said, "there is one aboard this ship to whom
your coming may mean life instead of death. He is very ill,--so ill that
we despaired of him till now,--and one name is ever on his lips. Are you
too weak and unstrung, my dear young lady, to go with me to his sick
bed?"

That was how the truth came to me. I cannot write of what I felt.

"Take me to him," I said.

He lay in his berth; his large eyes were alight with fever, and he was
talking ceaselessly, now in broken whispers, now with a proud defiance
in his husky tones.

"God knows what the devils did to him," murmured Henry Brayne. "He was
once a pr