"It won't do father any
good to know it," she said to herself, "and if it _did_ it oughtn't
to," she added with triumphant feminine logic. But the impression made
upon her by the spectacle she had just witnessed was stronger than any
other consideration. The revelation of De Ferriefres' secret poverty
seemed a chapter from a romance of her own weaving; for a moment it
lifted the miserable hero out of the depths of his folly and
selfishness. She forgot the weakness of the man in the strength of his
dramatic surroundings. It partly satisfied a craving she had felt; it
was not exactly the story of the ship, as she had dreamed it, but it
was an episode in her experience of it that broke its monotony. That
she should soon learn, perhaps from De Ferrieres' own lips, the true
reason of his strange seclusion, and that it involved more than
appeared to her now, she never for a moment doubted.
At the end of an hour she again knocked softly at the door, carrying
some light nourishment she had prepared for him. He was asleep, but she
was astounded to find that in the interval he had managed to dress
himself completely in his antiquated finery.
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