"God bless you, dear, kind friend!"
But the Captain lingered still.
"Is anything the matter, dear Captain Cuttle?" said Florence, easily alarmed in her then state of mind. "Have you anything to tell me?"
"To tell you, lady lass!" replied the Captain, meeting her eyes in confusion. "No, no; what should I have to tell you, pretty! You don’t expect as I ’ve got anything good to tell you, sure?"
"No" said Florence, shaking her head.
The Captain looked at her wistfully, and repeated "No,"—still lingering, and still showing embarrassment.
"Poor Wal’r!" said the Captain. "My Wal’r, as I used to call you! Old Sol Gills’s nevy! Welcome to all as knowed you, as the flowers in May! Where are you got to, brave boy? Drownded, ain’t he?"
Concluding his apostrophe with this abrupt appeal to Florence, the Captain bade her good night, and descended the stairs, while Florence remained at the top, holding the candle out to light him down. He was lost in the obscurity, and, judging from the sound of his receding footsteps, was in the act of turning into the little parlour, when his head and shoulders unexpectedly emerged again, as from the deep, apparently for no other purpose than to repeat, "Drownded, ain’t he, pretty?" For when he had said that in a tone of tender condolence, he disappeared.
Florence was very sorry that she should unwittingly, though naturally, have awakened these associations in the mind of her protector, by taking refuge there; and sitting down before the little table where the Captain had arranged the telescope and song-book, and those other rarities, thought of Walter, and of all that was connected with him in the past, until she could have almost wished to lie down on her bed and fade away. But in her lonely yearning to the dead whom she had loved, no thought of home—no possibility of going back—no presentation of it as yet existing, or as sheltering her father—once entered her thoughts. She had seen the murder done. In the last lingering natural aspect in which she had cherished him through so much, he had been torn out of her heart, defaced, and slain. The thought of it was so appalling to her, that she covered her eyes, and shrunk trembling from the least remembrance of the deed, or of the cruel hand that did it. If her fond heart could have held his image after that, it must have broken; but it could not; and the void was filled with a wild dread that fled from all confronting with its shattered fragments—with such a dread as could have risen out of nothing but the depths of such a love, so wronged.
She dared not look into the glass; for the sight of the darkening mark upon her bosom made her afraid of herself, as if she bore about her something wicked. She covered it up, with a hasty, faltering hand, and in the dark; and laid her weary head down, weeping.
The Captain did not go to bed for a long time. He walked to and fro in the shop and in the little parlour, for a full hour, and, appearing to have composed himself by that exercise, sat down with a grave and thoughtful face, and read out of a Prayer-book the forms of prayer appointed to be used at sea. These were not easily disposed of; the good Captain being a mighty slow, gruff reader, and frequently stopping at a hard word to give himself such encouragement as "Now, my lad! With a will!" or, "Steady,
