Mr Eagle did not speak. Indeed, having started, he came to a stand and scarcely moved, staring. Of course he knew that the young lady was on board, but realisation had not been completed in his narrow, shallow understanding, because down to this moment he had not been able to use his eyes to see her. But now she stood before him, Miss Lucy Acton indeed, but Lord defend him! how changed! "Why," he reflected with the velocity of thought, "it was only a few days ago, in a manner of speaking, that she comes aboard this vessel when we was lying at the wharf and asks after my rheumatism, and says she'd like to make a voyage to the West Indies if the weather could be kept fine and the sea smooth. And I couldn't help thinking to myself that I never could imagine a smarter and a more modish young party than she looked, whilst now—well, if this rooning away to sea with a man is to be called love, bust[Pg 331] me if it ain't only another name for madness. For what young lady in such sarcumstances as that there with a beautiful 'ome, carriages, sarvants to wait upon her, and a loving father to give her everything that she wants, and more than she wants, would dream of rooning away to sea with a man with no other clothes than those on her back, onless she was as mad as that there Miss Lucy Acton looks."
k51bet, "I wish, madam," he said, "I could see you seated more comfortably. But I wish more that you could see into my heart, what I feel there, and how my pain is infinitely keener than yours, because my love for you, my inexorable passion for you, my determination to win you and make you my own for life, paralysing the efforts of those who would keep us asunder, make the very soul within me shrink to behold you so uneasy, so unhappy, so reluctant to cast upon me one look—even one look—to persuade me that my stratagem was based upon my conviction that I am not[Pg 319] indifferent to you, nay, that deep in your spirit your love for me dwells as a jewel in a casket that yourself dare not open, though willing that I should."
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k51bet These and a few further words brought them to the gateway of Old Harbour House. They entered and found Miss Acton in the dining-room..
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