For the men who will take such
risks without hope of personal gain are few. Blood was of those
few, as he had proved in the case of Mary Traill.
It needed no further assurances of his to convince her that she had
done him a monstrous injustice. She remembered words he had used
- words overheard aboard his ship (which he had named the Arabella)
on the night of her deliverance from the Spanish admiral; words he
had uttered when she had approved his acceptance of the King's
commission; the words he had spoken to her that very morning, which
had but served to move her indignation. All these assumed a fresh
meaning in her mind, delivered now from its unwarranted
preconceptions.
Therefore she lingered there in the garden, awaiting his return
that she might make amends; that she might set a term to all
misunderstanding. In impatience she awaited him. Yet her patience,
it seemed, was to be tested further. For when at last he came, it
was in company - unusually close and intimate company - with her
uncle. In vexation she realized that explanations must be postponed.
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