ll come on a Hell of a Calm
for a Month of Sundays," he turned his face to the port and went over
_his_ Great Barrier.

***** Every one was "_so_ sorry for poor little Mrs. Liardet." She
was so young to be a widow, "and having no children, my dear, the poor
creature must have felt the shock the more keenly." Thus the local
gabble of the acquaintances and friends of the pretty widow. And she
laughed softly to herself that she couldn't feel overwhelmed with grief
at her widowhood. "He hadn't a thought above making money," she said to
herself--oh, Nell Liardet, for whom did he desire to make it!--"and yet
never could make it." And then she thought of Russell, and smiled again.
His hand had trembled when it held hers. Surely he did not come so often
to see her merely to talk of rough, old Dave Liardet. A man whom she had
only tolerated--never loved. And then, Russell was a big, handsome
man; and she liked big, handsome men. Also, he was captain now. And, of
course, when he had told her of that rich patch of pearl-shell, that he
alone knew of at Caille Harbour, in which was a small fortune, and had
looked so intently into her blue eyes, he had meant that it was for her.
"Yes," and she smiled again, "I'm sure he loves me. But he's terribly
slow; and although I do believe that blonde young widows look 'fetching'
in black, I'm getting sick of it, and wish he'd marry me to-morrow."

Russell had stood to his compact with the dead skipper. The owners had
given her L150, and Russell, making up a plausible story to his dead
captain's wife of Liardet having in bygone days lent him "fifty pounds,"
had added that sum to the other. And he meant, for the sake of old Dave,
never to let his pretty little widow run short as long as he had a shot
in the locker. The patch of shell at Caille he meant to work, and if
Dave had lived they would have "gone whacks." But as he was dead, he
wouldn't do any mean thing. She should have half of whatever he got--"go
whacks" just the same. But as for love, it never entered his honest
brain, and had any one told him that Nell Liardet was fond of him, he
would have called him a liar and "plugged" him for insulting a lady.

*****

"Going away! Mr. Russell--Joe! Surely you won't go and leave me without
a friend in the world? I thought you cared for me more than that?"

The big man reddened up to his temples.

"Don't say that, Mrs. Liardet. If you'll allow me, I'll always be a
friend. And, as I thought i