‘Don’t say any more, Mr. Jolliffe, don’t!’ said she, choking. ‘You are going to marry Joanna next month, and it is wrong to—to—’ ‘O, Emily, my darling!’ he cried, and clasped her little figure in his arms before she was aware. Joanna, behind the curtain, turned pale, tried to withdraw her eyes, but could not. ‘It is only you I love as a man ought to love the woman he is going to marry; and I know this from what Joanna has said, that she will willingly let me off! She wants to marry higher I know, and only said “Yes” to me out of kindness. A fine, tall girl like her isn’t the sort for a plain sailor’s wife: you be the best suited for that.’ He kissed her and kissed her again, her flexible form quivering in the agitation of his embrace. ‘I wonder—are you sure—Joanna is going to break off with you? O, are you sure? Because—’ ‘I know she would not wish to make us miserable. She will release me.’ ‘O, I hope—I hope she will! Don’t stay any longer, Captain Jolliffe!’ He lingered, however, till a customer came for a penny stick of sealing-wax, and then he withdrew. Green envy had overspread Joanna at the scene. She looked about for a way of escape. To get out without Emily’s knowledge of her visit was indispensable. She crept from the parlour into the passage, and thence to the front door of the house, where she let herself noiselessly into the street. The sight of that caress had reversed all her resolutions. She could not let Shadrach go. Reaching home she burnt the letter, and told her mother that if Captain Jolliffe called she was too unwell to see him. Shadrach, however, did not call. He sent her a note expressing in simple language the state of his feelings; and asked to be allowed to take advantage of the hints she had given him that her affection, too, was little more than friendly, by cancelling the engagement. Looking out upon the harbour and the island beyond he waited and waited in his lodgings for an answer that did not come. The suspense grew to be so intolerable that after dark he went up the High Street. He could not resist calling at Joanna’s to learn his fate. Her mother said her daughter was too unwell to see him, and to his questioning admitted that it was in consequence of a letter received from himself; which had distressed her deeply. ‘You know what it was about, perhaps, Mrs. Phippard?’ he said. Mrs. Phippard owned that she did, adding that it put them in a very painful position. Thereupon Shadrach, fearing that he had been guilty of an enormity, explained that if his letter had pained Joanna it must be owing to a misunderstanding, since he had thought it would be a relief to her. If otherwise, he would hold himself bound by his word, and she was to think of the letter as never having been written.