"No: never till the debt
is paid!" Her thoughts veered back again to Frank. "Still at sea, poor
fellow; further and further away from me; sailing through the day,
sailing through the night. Oh, Frank, love me!"
Her eyes filled with tears. She dashed them away, made for the door, and
laughed with a desperate levity, as she unlocked it again.
"Any company is better than my own thoughts," she burst out, recklessly,
as she left the room. "I'm forgetting my ready-made relations--my
half-witted aunt, and my uncle the rogue." She descended the stairs
to the landing on the first floor, and paused there in momentary
hesitation. "How will it end?" she asked herself. "Where is my
blindfolded journey taking me to now? Who knows, and who cares?"
She entered the room.
Captain Wragge was presiding at the tea-tray with the air of a prince
in his own banqueting-hall. At one side of the table sat Mrs. Wragge,
watching her husband's eye like an animal waiting to be fed. At the
other side was an empty chair, toward which the captain waved his
persuasive hand when Magdalen came in. "How do you like your room?" he
inquired; "I trust Mrs. Wragge has made herself useful? You take
milk and sugar? Try the local bread, honor the York butter, test
the freshness of a new and neighboring egg.
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