'No doubt;--and so in real truth can I. I can stand apart and defy them
all; and as I look at them looking at me, and almost know with what
words they are maligning me, I can tell myself that they are beneath me,
and that I care nothing for them. I shall do nothing which will enable
any one to interfere with me. But it seems hard that all this should be
so because I am a widow,--and because I am alone,--and because I am
poorly clothed.'

As she said this there were tears in her eyes, true ones, and something
of the sound of a broken sob in her voice. And Caldigate was moved. The
woman's condition was to be pitied, whether it had been produced with or
without fault on her own part. To be alone is always sad,--even for a
man; but for a woman, and for a young woman, it is doubly melancholy. Of
a sudden the dancing was done and the lamps were taken away.

'If you do not want to go to bed,' he said, 'let us take a turn.'

'I never go to bed. I mean here, on board ship. I linger up on deck,
half hiding myself about the place, till I see some quartermaster eying
me suspiciously and then I creep down into the little hole which I
occupy with three of Mrs. Crompton's children and then I cry myself to
sleep. But I don't call that going to bed.'

'Take a turn now.'

'I shall feel like the housemaid talking to her follower through the
area-gate. But she is brave, and why should I be a coward?' Then she put
her hand upon his arm. 'And you,' she said, 'why are not you dancing in
the other part of the ship with Mrs. Callander and Miss Green, instead
of picking your way among the hencoops here with me?'