"Maybe so."

"Are--are you going to give her up to him?"

"No."

"Then what I heard was true. You did say at the meeting that you were
going to do your best to keep him from getting her."

"Um--hum! What I said amounts to just about that."

"Why?"

Captain Cy was surprised and a little disappointed apparently.

"Why?" he repeated.

"Yes. Why?"

"Well, for reasons I've got."

"Do you mind telling me the reasons?"

"I cal'late you don't want to hear 'em. If you don't understand now,
then I can't make it much plainer, I'm afraid."

The little lady sprang to her feet.

"Oh, you are provoking!" she cried indignantly. "Can't you see that I
want to hear the reasons from you yourself? Cap'n Whittaker, I shook
hands with you last night."

"You remember I told you you'd better wait."

"I didn't want to wait. I believed I knew something of human nature, and
I believed I had learned to understand you. I made up my mind to pay
no more attention to what people said against you. I thought they were
envious and disliked you because you did things in your own way. I
wouldn't believe the stories I heard this afternoon. I wanted to hear
you speak in your own defense and you refuse to do it. Don't you
know what people are saying? They say you are trying to keep Emily
because--Oh, I'm ashamed to ask it, but you make me: HAS the child got
valuable property of her own?"

Captain Cy had been, throughout this scene, standing quietly by the
table. Now he took a step forward.

"Miss Dawes," he said sharply, "sit down."

"But I--"

"Sit down, please."

The schoolmistress didn't mean to obey the order, but for some reason
she did. The captain went on speaking.

"It's pretty plain," he said, "that what you heard at the boardin'
house--for I suppose that's where you did hear it--was what you might
call a Phinneyized story of the doin's at the meetin'. Well, there's
another yarn, and it's mine; I'm goin' to spin it and I want you to
listen."

He went on to spin his yarn. It was practically a repetition of his
reply to Tad Simpson that morning. Its conclusion was also much the
same.

"The land ain't worth fifty dollars," he declared, "but if it was fifty
million he shouldn't have it. Why? Because it belongs to that little
girl. And he shan't have her until he and those back of him have
hammered me through the courts till I'm down forty fathom under water.
And when they do get her--and, to be honest, I cal'late they w