e hung in the wind. He looked
round the room with disgust as if he could see traces on the walls of all
the casual tenants that had ever passed through it. People had
quarrelled in that room; they had been ill in it, there had been misery
in that room, wickedness, crime perhaps--death most likely. This was not
a fit place. He snatched up his hat. He had made up his mind. The
ship--the ship he had known ever since she came off the stocks, his
home--her shelter--the uncontaminated, honest ship, was the place.

"Let us go on board. We'll talk there," he said. "And you will have to
listen to me. For whatever happens, no matter what they say, I cannot
let you go."

You can't say that (misgivings or no misgivings) she could have done
anything else but go on board. It was the appointed business of that
morning. During the drive he was silent. Anthony was the last man to
condemn conventionally any human being, to scorn and despise even
deserved misfortune. He was ready to take old de Barral--the convict--on
his daughter's valuation without the slightest reserve. But love like
his, though it may drive one into risky folly by the proud consciousness
of its own strength, has a sagacity of its own. And now, as if lifted up
into a higher and serene region by its purpose of renunciation, it gave
him leisure to reflect for the first time in these last few days. He
said to himself: "I don't know that man. She does not know him either.
She was barely sixteen when they locked him up. She was a child. What
will he say? What will he do? No, he concluded, I cannot leave her
behind with that man who would come into the world as if out of a grave.

They went on board in silence, and it was after showing her round and
when they had returned to the saloon that he assailed her in his fiery,
masterful fashion. At first she did not understand. Then when she
understood that he was giving her her liberty she went stiff all over,
her hand resting on the edge of the table, her face set like a carving of
white marble. It was all over. It was as that abominable governess had
said. She was insignificant, contemptible. Nobody could love her.
Humiliation clung to her like a cold shroud--never to be shaken off,
unwarmed by this madness of generosity.

"Yes. Here. Your home. I can't give it to you and go away, but it is
big enough for us two. You need not be afraid. If you say so I shall
not even look at you. Remember that