Elizabeth meanwhile had been sitting a prey to most distracted thoughts.  When she went below with her child, she had a dull feeling at her heart that some great sorrow had come or was coming over her, and she had sat for some time almost without the power to think.  He had never treated her like that before.

She set about putting the child to bed then in her usual way, as if she had been a mere machine.  For him the rolling berth was only a rocking cradle, and he was soon sleeping quietly without an idea of danger.  She stood with her arm leaning over the edge of the berth, supporting him, and gazing on his dimpled face; the lamp that swung to and fro under the beam, shedding a dim light over the narrow cabin, with its small table, and pegs full of seamen’s clothes, moving solemnly backwards and forwards on the wall.  Between the creaking of the ship’s timbers and the noise of ropes being dragged across the deck, Salve’s voice could be heard in harsh tones of command, and every now and then there would be a sudden concussion that would make the whole vessel shake, and the floor would seem to go from under her feet, so that she had to hold on by the rail of the berth, and keep the child from falling out as best she could at the same time.  Whenever they had had such weather before, Salve had always come down from time to time to see her.  Now—­she didn’t know what to think.  From what the cook had told her, she gathered that they were beating with unjustifiable recklessness, and from the tone of Salve’s voice she knew that he was in a savagely defiant mood, and that she, for some reason or other, was the cause of it.  Her expression gradually changed to one of deeper and deeper anxiety of soul.

“But what have I done to him?” she exclaimed impetuously, and buried her face in the bedclothes.

“What have I done to him?” she repeated.  “What can he believe?—­what can he possibly think?” she asked herself, as she stood now like a statue almost, lost in conjecture, until the thought which she had always tried to keep away came up before her in full, heavy, unmistakable clearness.

“He doesn’t trust me!” she whispered to herself, in despair.  “He has no faith in me;” and she laid her head—­her beautiful head—­down upon her arm, just as her own child might have done, in an inconsolable fit of crying.  But to her no tears would come, and she seemed to see an abyss of suspicion and distrust before her in which Salve’s love for her was going to disappear.

She heard no longer the creaking and the noise on deck—­no longer cared about the lurching and the thuds against the head-seas—­although she had often to hold on to the berth with all her strength.  All the energy of her soul was now occupied with this one awful terror which had taken possession of her.  All her defiance was gone.  Her only source of courage now was to do anything or everything to keep his love.  She felt ready for any sacrifice whatever—­ready, without a sigh, to bear the burden of his suspicions all her life through if she might only keep his love.  It was she who had made him distrustful, and it was upon her the punishment should fall, if she could not by persistent love bring him back to a healthy condition of mind again.