And yet he knew he would never be hardened to pain and suffering wherever he might find it. Just a flogging disturbed him physically every time he saw it, so Lizbeth’s distress had equally the power to hurt him.
Her little face, white and strained by the shock of what she had seen, was like a dagger in his heart. Her eyes were wide and defiant of the tears that were not far away and her lips trembled –the lips he had kissed and had never been able to forget.
He swore at himself for being a fool, and yet he could do nothing about it. He could never, it seemed to him, forget her presence aboard his ship and he told himself that his whole joy in the voyage was destroyed because of her.
Having little knowledge of women and believing them to be frail flowers who would crumple up at the first
