I wondered for a moment if I could have heard aright. It was hard to believe in such consummate insolence--such a wild, malignant, perversion of facts. To talk of _Tom_ as a henpecked husband! To dub _me_, of all people in the world, a vixen!! To say that I--_I_--did not appreciate him!!! The thing was too utterly ludicrous to be taken seriously, and yet it made me so angry that I could hardly contain myself. It made me feel that it would have been a pleasure to rush out upon her and tear her hair from her head, just like the real vixens do. I felt that my husband, who was also the commander of the ship, ought to have spared me this gross indignity, which could not have occurred if he had respected his position, and kept himself to himself. Knowing that she was not with him now, I went back to the bridge. But alas and alas! The bridge, that had been a little paradise, was a place despoiled. Though the serpent had gone out of it, she had been there and poisoned everything. Tom was not the same to me. All the pleasure of our trip was at an end. I had a wretched day, and at night a gale came on, and I was seasick for the first time. He did not know it, and I would not send for him. Oh, it was horrible! It was tragical! It was heart-breaking! I can't talk about it any more. * * * * * People came to meet her at Sydney, but she could not leave without a ceremonious good-bye to her dear captain. She was calling for him everywhere while he was busy making fast, and when she got him she shook hands two or three times over, standing apart with him as at first, regardless of me. Goodness knows I did not want to intrude, yet it was impossible to help noticing the fuss she made. I heard her say--I am quite _sure_ I heard her--that she was coming back with us; meaning, of course, with him. She explained that she had but a day's business to do in Sydney, and would then be able to return by the "dear old Bendigo"--I distinctly caught those three words, in her high-pitched voice. And I thought to myself that this would really be more than I could stand--more than I could in reason be expected to stand. In fact, I was so enraged that I was strongly tempted to put it to my husband that he must make his choice between her and me. However, on second thoughts, I perceived that it would be more dignified to say nothing, but to let my acts speak for me. We had never been accustomed to bicker between ourselves, he and I, and to a certain extent he was not responsible for the situation. Any one not suffering from madness or an infectious disease had the right to travel in the ship; he could not help it. But if he could not turn the otherwise objectionable person off, he could keep him or her in the passengers' proper place. My grievance with him was that he did not keep that woman in her place.