I have made few friends forward, and am even bold enough to say that I have longed for a word with you ever since I first saw you aboard." "Why especially with me ?" "Rather a hard question to answer at the very beginning," I smiled back at her.

"Yet not so difficult as the one I shall ask you.

Except for a fat matron, and a colored maid, you chance to be the only woman on board.

Can you consider it unnatural that I should feel an interest?
On the other hand I am only one of fifty prisoners, scarcely cleaner or more reputable looking than any of my mates.

Yet surely you have not sought speech with these others ?" "No." "Then why especially with me ?" Even in the growing dusk I could mark a red flush mount into the clear cheeks at this insistent question, and for an instant her eyes wavered.