l be all my days,' say you, an' you think o' joinin' a band that
will sink an' destroy--yes, an' mayhap kill in the morning. This
American has as much right to what herrin' his men can ketch as anybody
else."

John Lowe turned to the trader. "She's right, Mr. Lackford, she's
right."

"You'll not be with us?"

"I can't."

"After all you said! Well, there will be enough without you." He was
still addressing John Lowe, but it was on the woman his eyes were bent.
"Only let me carry back the word you'll not be against us."

"No, no--I'll not be against you."

"That's enough. Good night."

"Good night."

The door closed. They listened to the crunching of the trader's
boot-heels on the pebbly beach outside.

"They'll be killing, mayhaps, in the morning, and it's well for you to
be clear of it, John Lowe."

"But he lost my son."

"It was a natural death for a fisherman, John Lowe, to be lost that
way."

"But what reason to love him for it?"

"What reason ha' ye to hate him till you know more of him?"

Silence reigned again in the kitchen; silence until John Lowe set aside
his book and made for the stairs. With his foot on the bottom step he
paused and sighed. "Even after three months it's no' easy to bear. But
you're right, wife, it's no' right what some of them be up to."

"No, it's no' right. An' he's not the man Lackford an' the others would
ha' you believe, John."

He looked long at his wife. "No? No doubt no--but no stop to it now. If
there was a way to slip a word and not be known for it; but there's no
way. Come to bed, woman. But"--the girl was standing up--"where be you
off to?"

The girl looked to her stepmother; and the stepmother answered for her.

"It's o'er-early for bed yet--she's goin' for an hour to Shepperd's,
John. Go on, Bess, but don't stay too long."

The girl snatched her shawl and hurried out.

"And is't so you manage her, woman?"

"Let be, man, let be. She's no child to be managed--your way o'
managin'. Why shouldn't she have her little pleasure? What's one here
for? Prayers an' psalms, prayers an' psalms----"

"An' do you rail against the prayin'?"

"Not me. Prayin's for good, no doubt; but all of us hasn't the sin so
black that it needs prayin' night an' day to burn it out."

He glared at her. "An' you're waitin' up for her?"

"I am."

"Some night you'll wait o'er-long, woman."

"No, no. She's young, is Bess, and a bit soft. But no bad--no, no, no
bad in Bess. She