I got into the narrow gangway and so made my way aft that I might not again pass Tom. My dread was for myself rather than for him. If I drew close and once more looked him in the face, my passion of love must vent itself in some desperate betraying manner. Girl as I was, I found a curse in my heart for the barbarity that weighted my sweetheart’s ankles with iron, and a curse for the law that had suffered two villains to swear his liberty, fortune, happiness away and make a broken-hearted convict of him. I drank a little coffee in the pantry with my fellow-servant, but ate nothing. The German supposed I was fretting over having run away and good-naturedly tried to cheer me. However, as the time passed, my spirits improved, for now I knew beyond all doubt that Tom was on board; and he also knew beyond all doubt that I was with him, and it comforted me to reflect that without any further explanation he would understand why I had made no attempt to bid him farewell at Woolwich. And still I was anxious. He would soon discover, by observing me as I passed to and fro, that I had been put to menial work unfit for the lady of his love, for the girl of his heart, for a woman who had been greatly indulged, who knew nothing of hardships, whose means were ample for one of her degree. I feared his spirit would chafe and fret over the thought of my being a common helper in the cabin--cuddy-deck scrubber, a ship’s scullery boy--and that to deliver me from these degrading offices he might betray me, tell the story of our love, and exactly reveal my condition, not doubting, I dare say, that Captain Sutherland would then charge me for my passage and treat me as a passenger. And, indeed, I should have been very willing to be a passenger, to pay any exorbitant sum for that privilege, had the thing been contrivable now that I was on board. But could it have been managed? No. Because whether I revealed myself as a woman with a secret which nothing could make her avow, or whether I owned my sex and frankly declared that I had followed Tom because of my love for him, in either case the stern and suspicious doctor would either oblige me to land at any port we had occasion to water at, or compel the captain to pass me into the first ship that would receive me. I found an opportunity after the cuddy breakfast things had been cleared away to write a letter to Tom. I wrote in my cabin and used the pencil and paper my cousin had given to me. Whilst I wrote I had not felt so tranquil in spirits, so easy, nay, so happy in my heart, for months. Tom was near me. Nothing but death or ocean calamity could separate us till we arrived at Tasmania, and then I should be in the same land with him, with opportunities that I could not now imagine; this writing was like talking to him, and the sweeter because it was secret; no governor would first read my letter.