oughts for company, and
the distant noises of the storm muttering in the outer darkness.

They were not particularly pleasant processes of thought. The sins of
the fathers shall be visited even unto the third and fourth generation.
Why, in the name of God, should they be, he asked himself?

Betty Gower liked him. She had been trying to tell him so. MacRae felt
that. He did not question too closely the quality of the feeling for her
which had leaped up so unexpectedly. He was afraid to dig too deep. He
had got a glimpse of depths and eddies that night which if they did not
wholly frighten him, at least served to confuse him. They were like
flint and steel, himself and Betty Gower. They could not come together
without striking sparks. And a man may long to warm himself by fire,
MacRae reflected gloomily, but he shrinks from being burned.

CHAPTER XIII

An Interlude

At daybreak Peter Ferrara came to the house.

"How are you?" he asked.

"Sore. Wobbly." MacRae had tried his legs and found them wanting.

"It was a bad night all round, eh, lad?" Peter rumbled in his rough old
voice. "Some of the boys got a line on the _Blackbird_ and hauled what
was left of her around into the Cove. But she's a ruin. The engine went
to pieces while she was poundin' on the rocks. Steve lays in the house.
He looks peaceful--as if he was glad to be through."

"I couldn't save him. It was done like that." MacRae snapped his
fingers.

"I know," Old Peter said. "You're not to blame. Perhaps nobody is. Them
things happen. Manuel'll feel it. He's lost both sons now. But Steve's
better off. He'd 'a' died of consumption or something, slow an' painful.
His lungs was gone. I seen him set for weeks on the porch wheezin' after
he come home. He didn't get no pleasure livin'. He said once a bullet
would 'a' been mercy. No, don't worry about Steve. We all come to it
soon or late, John. It's never a pity for the old or the crippled to
die."

"You old Spartan," MacRae muttered.

"What's that?" Peter asked. But MacRae did not explain. He asked about
Dolly instead.

"She was up to Potter's Landing. I sent for her and she's back," Peter
told him. "She'll be up to see you presently. There's no grub in the
house, is there? Can you eat? Well, take it easy, lad."

An hour or so later Dolly Ferrara brought him a steaming breakfast on a
tray. She sat talking to him while he ate.

"Gower will have to pay for the _Blackbird_, won't he?" she ask