gone by. She had been afraid to tell him the truth,
and then she had been a coward. Now, her wits were sharpened by the
sense of his desperate state. He must leave the house. She would pity
him afterwards; but now she must rather command and upbraid; for he
must leave the house before her mistress came home. That one necessity
stood clear before her.

'She is not here: that is enough for you to know. Nor can I say
exactly where she is' (which was true to the letter if not to the
spirit). 'Go away, and tell me where to find you tomorrow, and I will
tell you all. My master and mistress may come back at any minute, and
then what would become of me, with a strange man in the house?'

Such an argument was too petty to touch his excited mind.

'I don't care for your master and mistress. If your master is a man,
he must feel for me--poor shipwrecked sailor that I am--kept for years
a prisoner amongst savages, always, always, always thinking of my wife
and my home--dreaming of her by night, talking to her though she
could not hear, by day. I loved her more than all heaven and earth put
together. Tell me where she is, this instant, you wretched woman, who
salved over her wickedness to her, as you do to me!'

The clock struck ten. Desperate positions require desperate measures.

'If you will leave the house now, I will come to you tomorrow and tell
you all. What is more, you shall see your child now. She lies sleeping
upstairs. Oh, sir, you have a child, you do not know that as yet--a
little weakly girl--with just a heart and soul beyond her years. We
have reared her up with such care! We watched her, for we thought
for many a year she might die any day, and we tended her, and no hard
thing has come near her, and no rough word has ever been said to her.
And now you come and will take her life into your hand, and will crush
it. Strangers to her have been kind to her; but her own father--Mr
Frank, I am her nurse, and I love her, and I tend her, and I would do
anything for her that I could. Her mother's heart beats as hers beats;
and, if she suffers a pain, her mother trembles all over. If she is
happy, it is her mother that smiles and is glad. If she is growing
stronger, her mother is healthy: if she dwindles, her mother
languishes. If she dies--well, I don't know; it is not everyone can
lie down and die when they wish it. Come upstairs, Mr Frank, and see
your child. Seeing her will do good to your poor heart. Then go away,
in