Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/253

Rh passage is bad for the North Sea packet in winter.

"The doctors say you cannot live in wet, gloomy England, and here it is not much better. You will get well where we are going. We can be together as much as when I was chief officer in the old Deepdale, running out of Antwerp. The deeds of the home are ready to sign. I pay the ten thousand dollars when I come to New York this voyage. Then you come out the voyage after with me, for the company makes for us exception to the rule that a wife cannot sail on her husband's vessel."

She wistfully smiled as if led by a beautiful dream, thinking in her heart that to be sure of seeing her husband so often would be more than ever she dare hope for. Even beckoning health must yield first place to such a gift as this, but not yet satisfied she asked with tremulous insistence:

"But the bank will send the money over without risk, and it is all we have in the world, dear Max. Do you remember how the nest-egg was put away so long ago,