but still very
anxious.

"I don't see how I'm going to get the money, Cap'n Kendrick," he kept
repeating. "I don't see how all this helps us a bit. I don't see----"

Kendrick interrupted at last.

"You don't have to see," he declared. "You've left it to me, now let me
see if _I_ can see. I told you that, somehow or other, I'd tow you into
deep water. Well, give me a chance to get up steam. You write that
letter to your brother-in-law and hold him off till the middle of next
week. That's all you've got to do. I'll do the rest."

So Kent had to be satisfied with that. He departed, professing over and
over again his deathless gratitude. "If you do this, Cap'n Kendrick," he
proclaimed, "I never, never will forget it. And when I think how I
treated you I can't see why you do it. I never heard of such----"

"Sshh! shhh!" The captain waved him to silence. "I don't know why I am
doin' it exactly, George," he said.

"I do. You're doing it for my sake, of course, and----"

"Sshh! I don't know as I am--not altogether. Maybe I'm doin' it to try
and justify my own judgment of human nature--mine and Judge Knowles'. If
that judgment isn't right then I'm no more use than a child in arms, and
I need a guardian as much as--as----"

"As I do, you mean, I suppose. Well, I do need one, I guess. But I don't
understand what you mean by your judgment of human nature. Who have you
been judging?"

"Never mind. Now go home. Judah's out again and that's a mercy. I don't
want him or any one else to know you come here to see me."

George went, satisfied for the time, but Sears Kendrick, left face to
face with his own thoughts, knew that he had told the young man but a
part of the truth. It was not for Kent's sake alone that he had made the
rash promise to get back eight hundred of the sixteen hundred, or
another eight hundred to take its place. Neither was it entirely because
he hoped to confirm his judgment in the case of Egbert Phillips. The
real reason lay deeper than that. Kent had declared that he still loved
Elizabeth Berry and that he had reason to think she returned that love.
Perhaps she did; in spite of some things she had said after their
quarrel, it was possible--yes, probable that she did. If, by saving her
lover from disgrace, he might insure her future and her happiness,
then--then--Sears would have made rasher promises still and have
undertaken to carry them out.

The brokers' letter helped but little, if any. He entered