outward semblance of happiness that
both wore.

For three years is a long time for some thoughts and impulses to
mature in, and day after day out at sea, with only the monotony of
the ever-undulating waves, and the easily exhausted resources of
variety to be found on shipboard, give great opportunity for brooding,
and such speculations as come naturally to people who are idle and
isolated. Seeds of the devil's planting possess a peculiarly vital
and fructifying property and are sure to come to maturity sooner or
later. One can easily imagine the thoughts that might have come to
these two young men in the long, solitary watches, come perhaps like
suggestions from the world outside, wafted on the wings of the wind,
or caught up in chance hints and scraps of sailor talk, but coming
nevertheless straight from the God of mammon, and, with their slow
canker working a steady and sure corruption. And yet, neither had
probably ever allowed these thoughts to take any such positive form as
to be capable of recognition. They were always, even in the moments of
their strongest domination, veiled in some perfectly innocent mental
expression, such as _if_ anything should happen, or _supposing_ such
an affliction,--meditations which the most sensitive conscience could
not possibly challenge, but which had a way of creeping in upon the
minds of these two far oftener than they would have done, but for the
existence of the wills.

Philo had an inborn love of lucre that was strong enough to give spice
and fascination to these ponderings of possibilities, while Jack was
constantly under the stimulus of his fondness for Molly, and desire to
make a handsome provision for her. And by these means, this indefinite
_if_, acknowledged at first only as a remote and dreaded contingency,
gradually took to itself substance, and began to figure in the plans
and projects of each as if it were almost a positive certainty. Always,
however, with the proviso that it was a very sad possibility, to be
devoutly deplored and hoped against, but still acce