with what emotion, though it sounded the deeps of passion, I
could not then conjecture. He took her hand in both of his, and held it
tight, without speaking. She tried, dear heart! to meet his ardent
eyes--but could not.

"I'm wishin' you a fine voyage, zur," she said, her voice fallen to a
tremulous whisper.

He kissed the hand he held.

"T' the south," she added, with a swift, wondering look into his eyes,
"an' back."

"Child," he began with feeling, "I----"

In some strange passion my sister stepped from him. "Call me that no
more!" she cried, her voice broken, her eyes wide and moist, her little
hands clinched. "Why, child!" the doctor exclaimed. "I----"

"I'm _not_ a child!"

The doctor turned helplessly to me--and I in bewilderment to my
sister--to whom, again, the doctor extended his hands, but now with a
frank smile, as though understanding that which still puzzled me.

"Sister----" said he.

"No, no!"

'Twas my nature, it may be, then to have intervened; but I was mystified
and afraid--and felt the play of some great force, unknown and dreadful,
which had inevitably cut my sister off from me, her brother, keeping her
alone and helpless in the midst of it--and I quailed and kept silent.

"Bessie!"

She took his hand. "Good-bye, zur," she whispered, turning away,
flushed.

"Good-bye!"

The doctor went out, with a new mark upon him; and I followed, still
silent, thinking it a poor farewell my sister had given him, but yet
divining, serenely, that all this was beyond the knowledge of lads. I
did not know, when I bade the doctor farewell and Godspeed, that his
heart tasted such bitterness as, God grant! the hearts of men do seldom
feel, and that, nobility asserting itself, he had determined never again
to return: fearing to bring my sister the unhappiness of love, rather
than the joy of it. When I had put him safe aboard, I went back to the
house, where I found my sister sorely weeping--not for herself, she
sobbed, but for him, whom she had wounded.

XVIII

SKIPPER TOMMY GETS A LETTER

It came from the north, addressed, in pale, sprawling characters, to
Skipper Tommy Lovejoy of our harbour--a crumpled, greasy, ill-odoured
missive: little enough like a letter from a lady, bearing (as we
supposed) a coy appeal to the tender passion. But----

"Ay, Davy," my sister insisted. "'Tis from _she_. Smell it for
yourself."

I sniffed the letter.

"Eh, Davy?"

"Well, Bessie," I answered,