However, spite of her little effort to look the difficulty in the face, she seemed stunned. She would start sometimes whilst I talked to her, and send a wild sweeping look round the cabin, as though she could not realise her situation and sought to persuade herself that she was in a dream. I was grieved for her beyond words, yet I would not exhibit too much sympathy either, lest I should unduly accentuate the significance of our condition, and make her suppose that I believed it darker and more perilous than it really was. She had been buoyed up with a hope of escaping into another ship, or of shortly landing at Rio, and sailing home from there; and the disappointment coming on top of the perception that our adventure, harsh and soul-subduing as it had already been in some particulars, was only in reality just beginning, seemed to break her down. I did my utmost to make light of the business: said that but for my anxiety for her, I should enter upon the affair with positive relish, accepting it as a wild romance of the sea, which could seldom happen to a man in his life, and which he ought to live through and see out, if only for the sake of the memory of a stirring picturesque passage that at the longest would yet be brief. ‘As to wearing-apparel,’ I said, ‘there are needles and thread forward, and I don’t doubt that when you are put to it you will be able to manage. And then, suppose this story of the captain’s should prove true! suppose we should actually find buried in the spot he indicated a mass of gold which, when equally divided amongst us, would yield every man several thousands of pounds!’ She searched my face with her glowing eyes. ‘You do not believe this?’ she cried. ‘Certainly I do not,’ I answered. ‘I am only supposing.’ ‘I wish I could read your heart; I wish I could be sure that your determination to assent to the men’s wishes is not owing to sympathy with their own ideas.’ I burst into a loud laugh. ‘Of how many sins do you think me capable?’ I exclaimed. ‘How many enormous follies am I equal to? I believe you already secretly regard me as a pirate. Oh, Miss Temple, no man could ever feel ill-tempered in conversing with you, say what you will. But you are a little trying, though, now and again. Why do you wish to read my heart? You might discover sentiments which would render me detestable to you.’ ‘I do not understand you,’ she exclaimed, looking somewhat frightened. ‘Admiration for you, in a person whom you dislike, would make you abhor him.’ ‘Mr. Dugdale, is this a time for such feeble small-talk as would scarcely be endurable amidst safety and comfort? I should not be so utterly unhappy as I am if I felt that my mother knew where I was, that she was conscious of all that has happened to me, and that we should meet again.’