"I think," she said candidly, "we behaved very badly; but it was
O'Shea's fault--I only enjoyed it. And I don't see what else we could
have done, because those two French sailors had to watch if anyone came
to steal from the wreck, and they were going to help us so far as to go
to the sheds on the cliff for boards to get up the cart; but O'Shea
could not have stayed all night with the bags unless I had left him my
coat as well as his own."
"You might have trusted me," said Caius. Still he spoke with no
sensibility; she grew more at her ease.
"O'Shea wouldn't; and I couldn't control O'Shea. And then we had to meet
so often, that I could not bear that you should know I had worn a man's
coat. I had to do it, for I couldn't drive home any other way." Here a
pause, and her mind wandered to another recollection. "Those men we met
brought us word that one of my friends was so ill; I had to hurry to
him. In my heart I thought you would not respect me because I had worn a
man's coat; and because---- Yes, it was very naughty of me indeed to
behave as I did in the water that summer. Even then I did try to get
O'Shea to let me walk with you, but he wouldn't."
She had been slowly riding through a deep, soft sand-drift that was
heaped at the mouth of the hollow, and when they had got through the
opening, Caius saw the ribs of one side of an enormous wreck protruding
from the sand, about six feet in height.
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