nine o'clock--
and had prepared our breakfast. Her face was still pale, but some of
its anxiety left it as I entered. She was evidently waiting for me
to speak. Something in my looks, however, must have frightened her,
for, as I said nothing, she began to question me.

"Well, Jasper, is there any news?"

"There was a ship wrecked on Dead Man's Rock last night, but they've
not found anything except--"

"What was it called?"

"The _Mary Jane_--that is--I don't quite know."

Up to this time I had forgotten that mother would want to know about
my doings that morning. As an ordinary thing, of course I should
have told her whatever I had seen or heard, but my terror of the
Captain and the awful consequences of saying too much now flashed
upon me with hideous force. I had heard about the _Mary Jane_ from
the unhappy John. What if I had already said too much? I bent over
my breakfast in confusion.

After a dreadful pause, during which I felt, though I could not see,
the astonishment in my mother's eyes, she said--

"You don't quite know?"

"No; I think it must have been the _Mary Jane_, but there was a
strange sailor picked up. Uncle Loveday found him, and he seemed to
be a foreigner, and he said--I mean--I thought--it was the name,
but--"

This was worse and worse. Again at my wits' end, I tried to go on
with my breakfast. After awhile I looked up, and saw my mother
watching me with a look of mingled surprise and reproach.

"Was this sailor the only one saved?"

"No--that is, I mean--yes; they only found one."

I had never lied to my mother before, and almost broke down with the
effort. Words seemed to choke me, and her saddening eyes filled me
with torment.

"Jasper dear, what is the matter with you? Why are you so strange?"

I tried to look astonished, but broke down miserably. Do what I
would, my eyes seemed to be beyond my control; they would not meet
her steady gaze.

"Uncle Loveday is coming up later on. He's looking after the Cap--I
mean the sailor, and said he would run in afterwards."

"What is this sailor like?"

This question fairly broke me down. Between my dread of the Captain
and her pained astonishment, I could only sit stammering and longing
for the earth to gape and swallow me up. Suddenly a dreadful
suspicion struck my mother.

"Jasper! Jasper! it cannot be--you cannot mean--that it was _his_
ship?"

"No, mother, no! Father is all right. He said--I mean--it was no