thing, what with driftwood and the waste from Darrow that comes
down the river. Nan has a bit of a kitchen-garden and a few
chickens--so we make out. But when I die, my navy-pay stops."

He paused, too profoundly moved by consideration of the destitution
that would face Nan and her nameless boy to voice the situation in
words. But he looked up at Donald McKaye, and the latter saw again
that wistful look in his sea-blue eyes--the dumb pleading of a kind
old lost dog. He thought of the thirty-eight-foot sloop old Caleb had
built him--a thing of beauty and wondrously seaworthy; or the sense of
obligation which had caused old Brent to make of the task a labor of
love; of the long, lazy, happy days when, with Caleb and Nan for his
crew, he had raced out of the bight twenty miles to sea and back
again, for the sheer delight of driving his lee rail under until Nan
cried out in apprehension.

Poor, sweet, sad Nan Brent! Donald had known her through so many years
of gentleness and innocence--and she had come to this! He was consumed
with pity for her. She had fallen, but--there were depths to which
destitution and desperation might still drive her, just as there were
heights to which she might climb again if some half-man would but give
her a helping hand.

"Do you know the man, Caleb?" he demanded suddenly.

"No, I do not. I have never seen him. Nan wrote me when they were
married, and told me his name, of course."

"Then there _was_ a marriage, Caleb?"

"So Nan wrote me."

"Ah! Has Nan a marriage certificate?"

"I have never seen it. Seems their marriage wasn't legal. The name he
gave wasn't his own; he was a bigamist."

"Then Nan knows his real name."

"Yes; when she learned that, she came home."

"But why didn't she prosecute him, Caleb? She owed that to herself and
the child--- to her good name and"

"She had her reasons, lad."

"But you should have prosecuted the scoundrel, Caleb."

"I had no money for lawyers. I knew I was going to need it all for Nan
and her child. And I thought her reasons sufficient, Donald. She said
it would all come out right in the end. Maybe it will."

"Do you mean she knowingly accepted the inevitable disgrace when she
might have--have--" He wanted to add, "proved herself virtuous," but,
somehow, the words would not come. They didn't appear to him to be
quite fair to Nan.

The old man nodded.

"Of course we haven't told this to anybody else," he hastened to add.
"'Twould hav