Quotation from: Elsinore

Written by: Jack London

I had expressly stipulated with Mr. Harrison, when engaging passage,
that the one thing I could not possibly consider was the skipper of
the Elsinore taking his wife on the voyage. And Mr. Harrison had
smiled and assured me that Captain West would sail unaccompanied by a
wife.

"It's his daughter," the pilot replied under his breath. "Come to
see him off, I fancy. His wife died over a year ago. They say that
is what sent him back to sea. He'd retired, you know."