'Not exactly. But at present;--if I say my outward woman you'll know what I mean perhaps.' 'I think I shall.' 'Well; my present outward woman stands to me in lieu of the housemaid's broom, and the united authority of the Captain and Mrs. Crompton make up the mistress between them. And the worst of it all is, that though I have to endure the tyranny, I have not got the follower. It is as hard upon Mr. Shand as it is upon me.' 'Shand, I suppose, can take care of himself.' 'No doubt;--and so in real truth can I. I can stand apart and defy them all; and as I look at them looking at me, and almost know with what words they are maligning me, I can tell myself that they are beneath me, and that I care nothing for them. I shall do nothing which will enable any one to interfere with me. But it seems hard that all this should be so because I am a widow,--and because I am alone,--and because I am poorly clothed.' As she said this there were tears in her eyes, true ones, and something of the sound of a broken sob in her voice. And Caldigate was moved. The woman's condition was to be pitied, whether it had been produced with or without fault on her own part. To be alone is always sad,--even for a man; but for a woman, and for a young woman, it is doubly melancholy. Of a sudden the dancing was done and the lamps were taken away. 'If you do not want to go to bed,' he said, 'let us take a turn.' 'I never go to bed. I mean here, on board ship. I linger up on deck, half hiding myself about the place, till I see some quartermaster eying me suspiciously and then I creep down into the little hole which I occupy with three of Mrs. Crompton's children and then I cry myself to sleep. But I don't call that going to bed.' 'Take a turn now.' 'I shall feel like the housemaid talking to her follower through the area-gate. But she is brave, and why should I be a coward?' Then she put her hand upon his arm. 'And you,' she said, 'why are not you dancing in the other part of the ship with Mrs. Callander and Miss Green, instead of picking your way among the hencoops here with me?' 'This suited my pocket best,--and my future prospects.' 'You are making a delightful experiment in roughing it,--as people eat pic-nic dinners out in the woods occasionally, so that there may be a break in the monotony of chairs and tables.' While Shand had been unravelling her mystery, she, perhaps, had been more successful in unravelling his. 'We intend to be miners.' 'And to return home before long with some vast treasure. I hope you may be successful.' 'You seem to doubt it.' 'Of course it is doubtful. If not, the thing would be common and hardly worth the doing. Will Mr. Shand be very persistent as a working miner?' 'I hope so.'