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these miles I have followed after you; and all these years I have thought of you. You do not know--you do not know! It has been one long agony. Now go, please. I promise to keep myself as courteous as I can. You and I and Aunt Lucinda will just have a pleasant voyage together until--until that time. Try to be kind to me, Helena, as I shall try to be with you." Silent, unsmiling, she disappeared beyond her cabin door, nor would she eat dinner even in her cabin, although Aunt Lucinda did; and found the ninety-three was helping her neuralgia. I know not if they slept, but I slept not at all. The shadows hung black about us as we lay at anchor four miles inland, silent, and with no lights burning to betray us. Now and again, I could hear faint voices of the night, betimes croakings, splashings in the black water about us. It was as though the jungle had enclosed us, deep and secret-keeping. And in my heart the fierce fever of the jungle's teachings burned, so that I might not sleep. But in the morning Helena was fresh, all in white, and with no more than a faint blue of shadow beneath her eyes. She honored us at breakfast, and made no manner of reference to what had gone on the evening before. This, then, I saw, was to be our _modus vivendi_; convention, the social customs we all had known, the art, the gloss, the veneer of life, as life runs on in society as we have organized it! Ah, she fought cunningly! "Black Bart," said L'Olonnois, after breakfast as we all stood on deck--Helena, Auntie Lucinda and all--"what's all them things floatin' around in the water?" "They look like bottles, leftenant," said I; "perhaps they may have floated in here. How do you suppose they came here, Mrs. Daniver?" I asked. "How should I know?" sniffed that lady. "Well, good leftenant, go overside, you and Jean, and gather up all those bottles, and carry them with my compliments to the ladies at their cabin. You can have the satisfaction of throwing them all overboard later on, Mrs. Daniver. Only, remember, that there is no current in the bayou, and they will stay where they fall for weeks, unless for the wind." "And where shall we be, then?" demanded Auntie Lucinda, who had eaten a hearty breakfast, and I must say was looking uncommon fit for one so afflicted with neuralgia. "Oh, very likely here, in the same place, my dear Mrs. Daniver," said I, "unless war should break out meantime. At present we all seem to have a very
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