That afternoon Charles sailed
from Hull, on a ship bound for the Cape, and that evening Mivanway
arrived at the paternal home in Bristol with two trunks and the
curt information that she and Charles had separated for ever. The
next morning both thought of a soft speech to say to the other, but
the next morning was just twenty-four hours too late.
Eight days afterwards Charles's ship was run down in a fog, near
the coast of Portugal, and every soul on board was supposed to have
perished. Mivanway read his name among the list of lost; the child
died within her, and she knew herself for a woman who had loved
deeply, and will not love again.
Good luck intervening, however, Charles and one other man were
rescued by a small trading vessel, and landed in Algiers. There
Charles learnt of his supposed death, and the idea occurred to him
to leave the report uncontradicted. For one thing, it solved a
problem that had been troubling him. He could trust his father to
see to it that his own small fortune, with possibly something
added, was handed over to Mivanway, and she would be free if she
wished to marry again.
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