Part 67 (2/2)
”Oh, Mr. Dodd,” she cried, ”what am I doing?”
”You have been getting a nice sleep, thank Heaven.”
”Yes, and making use of you even in my sleep; but we all impose on your goodness.”
”Why did you awake? You were happy; you felt no care, and I was happy seeing you so.”
Lucy's eyes filled. ”Kind, true friend,” she murmured, ”how can I ever thank you as I ought? I little deserved that you should watch over my safety as you have done, and, alas! risk your own. Any other but you would have borne me malice, and let me perish, and said, 'It serves her right.'”
”Malice! Miss Lucy. What for, in Heaven's name?”
”For--for the affront I put upon you; for the--the honor I declined.”
”Hate cannot lie alongside love in a true heart.”
”I see it cannot in a n.o.ble one. And then you are so generous. You have never once recurred to that unfortunate topic; yet you have gained a right to request me--to reconsider--Mr. Dodd, you have saved my life!!”
”What! do you praise me because I don't take a mean advantage? That would not be behaving like a man.”
”I don't know that. You overrate your s.e.x--and mine. We don't deserve such generosity. The proof is, we reward those who are not so--delicate.”
”I don't trouble my head about your s.e.x. They are nothing to me, and never will be. If you think I have done my duty like a man, and as much like a gentleman as my homely education permits, that is enough for me, and I shall sail for China as happy as anything on earth can make me now.”
Lucy answered this by crying gently, silently, tenderly.
”Don't ye cry. Have I said something to vex you?”
”Oh no, no.”
”Are you alarmed still?”
”Oh, no; I have such faith in you.”
”Then go to sleep again, like a lamb.”
”I will; then I shall not tease you with my conversation.”
”Now there is a way to put it.”
”Forgive me.”
”That I will, if you will take some repose. There, I will lash you to my arm with this handkerchief; then you can lie the other way, and hold on by the handkerchief--there.”
She closed her eyes and fell apparently to sleep, but really to thinking.
Then David nudged Jack, and waked him. ”Speak low now, Jack.”
”What is it, sir?”
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