Perhaps she thought that I should not
mind.
After that, as I gather, she had not any more remorse. She was only
anxious to carry out her plans. For, just before she came down the
ladder, she called me to the top of that grotesque implement that I
went up and down like a tranquil jumping-jack. I was perfectly
collected. She said to me with a certain fierceness:
"It is determined that we sail at four this afternoon? You are not
lying about having taken berths?"
I understood that she would naturally be anxious to get away from
the neighbourhood of her apparently insane relatives, so that I
readily excused her for thinking that I should be capable of lying
about such a thing. I made it, therefore, plain to her that it was my
fixed determination to sail by the "Pocahontas". She said then--it
was a moonlit morning, and she was whispering in my ear whilst I
stood on the ladder. The hills that surround Waterbury showed,
extraordinarily tranquil, around the villa. She said, almost coldly:
"I wanted to know, so as to pack my trunks." And she added: "I
may be ill, you know. I guess my heart is a little like Uncle
Hurlbird's. It runs in families."
I whispered that the "Pocahontas" was an extraordinarily steady
boat.
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