‘Suppose he should be sent to Hobart Town and you make sail to Sydney, believing him there? You don’t know how big all that part of the world is. There’s a story of an Irishman who bought a commission in the 71st in order that he might be near his brother in the 70th. Have you got an atlas? Hobart Town’s a mighty long way from Botany Bay.’ ‘He’ll tell me the settlement.’ ‘But suppose it should be Norfolk Island? One of our Jacks knew that settlement. The frightfulest ruffians go there. The sailor said that when the convicts are removed they’re double cross ironed and chained down to the deck. Everybody’s afraid of them. Now what would you do there in a settlement of a few troops and scores of horrible villains?’ I smiled and said: ‘Where Tom is sent, I go;’ and then starting up, and flashing upon him in my old hot-tempered impulsive fashion, I cried: ‘I know all about Norfolk Island; I shall know what to do, Will.’ I sobered my voice and added, ‘I have been scheming for months all alone, dear. All the while that my darling has been in jail I have been planning and planning. I care not what the settlement be; let me have its name and I am ready.’ Will stayed an hour talking with me in my rooms. He then made me put on my hat and go for a walk. From this time we were as often together as though we had been brother and sister and lived in the same house. His company wonderfully cheered and supported me. I loved him for his affectionate sympathy; above all for his seeing things just as I did. On this account I was more frequently at my aunt’s than before his return from sea. She and my uncle sometimes talked of Tom, but never now in a way to vex me. They both knew my character; they witnessed the faith and devotion in my face whenever my sweetheart’s name was pronounced; they had gathered with the utmost significance from Will what my intention was when Tom should be sent across the seas, and saw the hopelessness of entreaty. Indeed, I was my own mistress. I was of age; I was answerable to no one. They knew all this and held their peace, though both of them, and my aunt especially, were secretly very uneasy and distressed by my loyalty to a convict. I had told Tom that I would be near him in person, and once I had a mind to take a lodging in Woolwich; but Stepney was not too far distant to enable me to easily satisfy my craving and fulfil my promise to be near him often; moreover, I never knew from day to day when I might hear that he was to be transhipped, and I wished to be ready to swiftly complete all my arrangements to follow him. And that is why I remained at home in Stepney instead of taking a lodging near the dockyard at Woolwich, though over and over again, sometimes four and sometimes five times a week, would I hire a boat and hang about the _Warrior_ hulk.