There
was a thing of which I stood in danger that would have been
bitterer to me, a thousand times, than death. I had but one thought,
to escape; how, I did not care, - only to escape. I had a waiting
woman named Patience Worth. One night she came to me,
weeping. She had wearied of service, and had signed to go to
Virginia as one of Sir Edwyn Sandys' maids, and at the last
moment her heart had failed her. There had been pressure brought
to bear upon me that day, - I had been angered to the very soul. I
sent her away with a heavy bribe, and in her dress and under her
name I fled from - I went aboard that ship. No one guessed that I
was not the Patience Worth to whose name I answered. No one
knows now, - none but you, none but you."
"And why am I so far honored, madam?" I said bluntly.
She crimsoned, then went white again. She was trembling now
through her whole frame. At last she broke out: "I am not of that
crew that came to marry! To me you are the veriest stranger, - you
are but the hand at which I caught to draw myself from a pit that
had been digged for me. It was my hope that this hour would never
come. When I fled, mad for escape, willing to dare anything but
that which I left behind, I thought, 'I may die before that ship with
its shameless cargo sets sail.' When the ship set sail, and we met
with stormy weather, and there was much sickness aboard, I
thought, 'I may drown or I may die of the fever.
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