By the strange, fortuitous circumstances which fate seems to indiscriminately weave about people, the maid and John Stevens were thrown much into each other's society.
She had many questions to ask about the New World.

He, having passed all his life there and having explored the coast to Massachusetts and fought many battles with the Indians, was able to entertain her, and she never seemed to tire of listening to his adventures.

It never occurred to John that there could be any impropriety in talking to this child, nor was there any, though modern society might condemn him.

He never mentioned his family to either Blanche or her father.
That wife and children left at Jamestown were subjects too sacred for general conversation.

When alone in his stateroom he knelt and breathed a prayer for them, and often in his dreams he heard his laughing boy at play, or felt the warm, soft hand of his baby on his cheek, or heard her sweet voice calling him.