“I meant to tell you as soon as we were off; but you turned the cold shoulder,—­you would not talk about home.”

Here he stopped.  I hoped he would say no more, for every word he spoke made me feel ashamed.  But he went on.

“The day before we agreed to go this voyage, Margaret told me that Arthur was concealed somewhere in the neighborhood.  She didn’t know what he had done, but only that he was running away from an officer.  I found him out, and went every night to carry him something to eat.”

“Why didn’t she tell me?” I exclaimed.  “I would have done the same.”

“She would, perhaps,” said he, “only that for some time you had acted so strangely.  She never said a word, but I knew it troubled her.  If I had only known of your feeling so, I would have told everything.  But I thought you must see how much I cared for Mary.  Everybody else was sure who Margaret loved, if you were not.

“Oh, Joseph,” he continued, clasping my hand, “how beautiful it will be, when we get home, now that everything is cleared up!  But I haven’t quite finished.  Sunday, if you remember, Margaret came in late to meeting.  While the hymn was being read, she wrote me on a slip of paper that Arthur was gone.  I wrote her back, ‘Good news.’  Afterwards she told me that he came in the night to her bedroom-window to bid her good-bye,—­that he had promised her he certainly would do better.  Margaret was in better spirits that day than I had seen her for a long while.  I thought there had been an explanation between you two.  Never fear, Joseph, but that she loves you.”

Jamie seemed tired after talking so much, and soon after fell asleep.  I crept into the berth underneath him.  I felt like creeping somewhere.  Sleep was long coming, and no sooner was I unconscious of things about me than I began to dream bad dreams.  I thought I was stumbling along in the dark, ’Twas over graves.  I fell over a heap of earth, and heard the stones drop down into one newly made.  As I was trying to walk away, Margaret came to meet me.  “You didn’t bid me good-bye,” said she, smiling; “but it’s not too late now.”  Then she held out her hand.  I took it, but the touch waked me.  ’Twas just like a dead hand.

I kept sleeping and waking; and every time I slept, the same dream came to me,—­exactly the same.  At last I rushed upon deck, sent a man below, and took his place.  He was glad to go, and I was glad to be where the wind was blowing and everything in commotion.

The next day I told Jamie my dream.  He said it was a lucky one, and he hoped it meant two weddings.  So I thought no more of it.  I was never superstitious:  my mother had taught me better.

We had just started for home, but this gale blew us off our course.  Soon after, however, the wind shifted to the eastward, and so kept, for the biggest part of the time, until we sighted Boston Lights.  Jamie was nearly well.  Still he could not walk much.  He was quite lame.  The skipper thought some of the small bones of the foot were put out.  But Jamie didn’t seem to care anything about his feet.  He was just as gay as a lark, singing all day.