"What news?"
Hornblower's spirits fell down into the depths of despair.
Perhaps Gambier had changed his mind.
Perhaps he was going to be kept under strict arrest, tried, condemned, and shot.
Perhaps —
"I remembered having seen this paragraph in the Morning Chronicle of three months ago, sir," said the secretary.
"I showed it to his Lordship, and to Captain Calendar.
They decided it ought to be shown to you as early as possible.
His Lordship says —"
"What is the paragraph?" demanded Hornblower, holding out his hand for the paper.
"It is bad news, sir," repeated the secretary, hesitatingly.
"Let me see it, damn you."
The secretary handed over the newspaper, one finger indicating the paragraph.
"The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away," he said.
"Blessed be the name of the Lord."
It was a very short paragraph.
We regret to announce the death in childbed, on the seventh of this month, of Mrs Maria Hornblower, widow of the late Captain Horatio Hornblower, Bonaparte's martyred victim.
The tragedy occurred in Mrs Hornblower's lodgings at Southsea, and we are given to understand that the child, a fine boy, is healthy.
Hornblower read it twice, and he began on it a third time.
Maria was dead, Maria the tender, the loving.
"You can find consolation in prayer, sir —" said the secretary, but Hornblower paid no attention to what the secretary said.
He had lost Maria.
She had died in childbed, and having regard to the circumstances in which the child had been engendered, he had as good as killed her.
Maria was dead.
There would be no one, no one at all, to welcome him now on his return to England.
Maria would have stood by him during the court martial, and whatever the verdict, she would never have believed him to be at fault.
Hornblower remembered the tears wetting her coarse red cheeks when she had last put her arms round him to say goodbye.
He had been a little bored by the formality of an affectionate goodbye, then.
He was free now — the realization came creeping over him like cold water in a warm bath.
But it was not fair to Maria.
He would not have bought his freedom at such a price.
She had earned by her own devotion his attention, his kindness, and he would have given them to her uncomplainingly for the rest of his life.
He was desperately sorry that she was dead.
"His Lordship instructed me, sir," said the secretary, "to inform you of his sympathy in your bereavement.
He told me to say that he would not take it amiss if you decided not to join him and his guests at dinner but sought instead the consolation of religion in your cabin."
"Yes," said Hornblower.
"Any help which I can give, sir —"
"None," said Hornblower.
He continued to sit on the edge of the cot, his head bowed, and the secretary shuffled his feet.
"Get out of here," said Hornblower, without looking up.
He sat there for some time, but there was no order in his thoughts; his mind was muddled.
There was a continuous undercurrent of sadness, a hurt feeling indistinguishable from physical pain, but fatigue and excitement and lack of sleep deprived him of any ability to think clearly.
Finally, with a desperate effort he pulled himself together.
He felt as if he was stifling in the stuffy cabin; he hated his stubbly beard and the feelings of dried sweat.
"Pass the word for my servant," he ordered the sentry at his door.
It was good to shave off the filthy beard, to wash his body in cold water, to put on clean linen.
He went up on deck, the clean sea air rushing into his lungs as he breathed.
It was good, too, to have a deck to pace, up and down, up and down, between the slides of the quarterdeck carronades and the line of ringbolts in the deck, with all the familiar sounds of shipboard life as a kind of lullaby to his tired mind.
Up and down he walked, up and down, as he had walked so many hours before, in the Indefatigable, and the Lydia, and the Sutherland.
They left him alone; the officers of the watch collected on the other side of the ship and only stared at him unobtrusively, politely concealing their curiosity about this man who had just heard of the death of his wife, who had escaped from a French prison, who was waiting his trial for surrendering his ship — the first captain to strike his colours in a British ship of the line since Captain Ferris in the Hannibal at Algecira.