I am going to leave _you_ at home!" To leave me at home! My first feeling is one of irrepressible relief.

No sea! no steward! no courtesying ship! no swaying waves after all! Then comes a quick and strong revulsion, shame, mortification, and pain.
"To--leave--me--at home!" I repeat slowly, hardly yet grasping the idea, "to--go--_without_--me!--by yourself ?" "By myself," he answers, gently.

"You see, it is no _new_ thing to me.

I have been by myself for forty-seven years." A quick, remorseful pain runs through my heart.
"But you are not by yourself any longer," I cry, eagerly.

"Why do you talk as if you were?
Do you count _me_ for nothing ?" "For nothing ?" he answers, smiling quietly.