Well, well, Captain Traverse,
there are curses that cling! And Louie sat in the gloom at the window of
the fisherman's cottage down below the town, and sighed and wondered and
longed and waited, but Captain Traverse went back to the Maurices'
mansion.
* * * * *
It is one of the enigmas of this existence how women forgive the wrong of
such hours as came to Louie now--hours of suspense and suffering--hours of
a misery worse than the worm's misery in blindness and pain before it
finds its wings.
At first she expected her lover, and speculated as to his delay, and
fretted to think anything might detain him from her; and now she was
amazed, and now vexed, and now she was forgiving the neglect, accusing
herself and making countless excuses for him; and now imagining a thousand
dire mishaps. But as the third day came and he was still away--he who had
been always wont to seek her as soon as the craft was made fast to
wharf--then she felt her worst forebodings taking bodily shape: he was
ill, he had fallen overboard, he had left the vessel at Liverpool and
shipped upon another, and a letter would come directly to say so; or else
he had been waylaid and robbed and made away with: not once did she dream
that he was false to her--to her, a portion of his own life!
How it was with him there were numberless ways in which she might have
discovered, for every soul of her acquaintance knew Andrew, and must be
aware of the fact if he were missing or ailing, or if any other ill chance
had befallen him.
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