ed to be in need; but somehow he wished
that in the present instance it had fallen to the lot of some one else
than himself to play the part of rescuer and benefactor, or that the
rescued individual had been any one rather than Walford. The fact was
that he wanted to forget, if possible, the keen and bitter pain of his
disappointment: and now the presence of his unhappy guest had brought it
all back to him and would keep it in poignant remembrance as long as
they two should remain together. Then, he bethought himself how selfish
a feeling he had been allowing himself to indulge; how utterly he had
forgotten that the matter was one with which Lucy's happiness must be
inseparably connected; and that fate--or Providence, rather, as he
reverently corrected himself--had in a very great measure confided that
happiness to his keeping, by delivering into his care the man upon whom
she had bestowed the priceless treasure of her heart's best love. And
as he thought this, he solemnly vowed that he would honestly strive to
prove worthy of the trust; that he would be to Lucy's lover a brother--
ay, _more_ than a brother; that he would nurse and tend him, restore to
him his reason if God willed it, and, in any case, watch over and
protect him--at the cost of his own life even, if need were--until he
could restore him to the arms of the woman who was impatiently awaiting
at home his safe return.

"His well-being has been confided to me as a sacred trust," he murmured
in conclusion, "and, please God, I will prove myself worthy of it."

With this resolution he dismissed the subject temporarily from his
thoughts, and turned his attention once more to the affairs of the ship.

Glancing aloft, and then all round the horizon, he observed that it had
fallen a flat calm, and that moreover there was no immediate prospect of
a breeze. The sky was a clear deep blue in the zenith, merging by
imperceptible gradations into a delicate warm grey at the horizon. The
water was absolutely without a ripple, there was not so much as the
faintest suggestion of a "cat's-paw" on all its glassy surface; and save
for the long sluggish sweep and heave of the swell which, as it
undulated past the ship, caught and reflected the varying tints of the
sky, it would have been difficult to detect the presence of water at all
at a distance of more than a few yards from the ship. The _Aurora_ was
still rolling sluggishly on the sleepy swell; her dazzling white ca