'I know you are a gentleman.'

'And I think you know less about the lady.'

'I know nothing;--but I will tell you what I hear.'

'I really would rather that you did not. Of course, Captain Munday, on
board your own ship you are a despot, and I must say that you have made
everything very pleasant for us. But I don't think even your position
entitles you to talk to me about my private affairs,--or about hers. You
say you know nothing. Is it manly to repeat what one hears about a poor
forlorn woman?' Then the Captain retreated without another word, owning
to himself that he was beaten. If this foolish young man chose to make
for himself a bed of that kind he must lie upon it. Captain Munday went
away shrugging his shoulders, and spoke no further word to John
Caldigate on that or any other subject during the voyage.

Caldigate had driven off his persecutors valiantly, and had taught them
all to think that he was resolute in his purposes in regard to Mrs.
Smith, let those purposes be what they might; but nothing could be
further from the truth; for he had no purposes and was, within his own
mind, conscious of his lack of all purpose, and very conscious of his
folly. And though he could repel Mrs. Callander and the Captain,--as he
had always repelled those who had attempted to control him,--still he
knew that they had been right. Such an intimacy as this could not be
wise, and its want of wisdom became the more strongly impressed upon him
the nearer he got to shore, and the more he felt that when he had got
ashore he should not know how to act in regard to her.

The intimacy had certainly become very close. He had expressed his