. And he's a honest, steady fellow with a
good home to offer her. If King had left her alone, she'd have taken
Connor. She used to like him well enough. But that's all over. She's
infatuated with King, the worthless scamp. She'll marry him and be
sorry for it to her last day. He's bad clear through and always will
be. Why, look you, Teacher, most men pull up a bit when they're
courting a girl, no matter how wild they've been and will be again.
Paul hasn't. It hasn't made any difference. He was dead drunk night
afore last at the Harbour head, and he hasn't done a stroke of work
for a month. And yet Joan Shelley'll take him."

"What are her people thinking of to let her go with him?" asked
Holmes.

"She hasn't any but her brother. He's against Paul, of course, but it
won't matter. The girl's fancy's caught and she'll go her own gait to
ruin. Ruin, I tell ye. If she marries that handsome ne'er-do-well,
she'll be a wretched woman all her days and none to pity her."

The two moved away then, and Paul lay motionless, face downward on the
sand, his lips pressed against Joan's sweet, crushed rose. He felt no
anger over Byron Lyall's unsparing condemnation. He knew it was true,
every word of it. He _was_ a worthless scamp and always would be. He
knew that perfectly well. It was in his blood. None of his race had
ever been respectable and he was worse than them all. He had no
intention of trying to reform because he could not and because he did
not even want to. He was not fit to touch Joan's hand. Yet he had
meant to marry her!

But to spoil her life! Would it do that? Yes, it surely would. And if
he were out of the way, taking his baleful charm out of her life,
Connor Mitchell might and doubtless would win her yet and give her all
he could not.

The man suddenly felt his eyes wet with tears. He had never shed a
tear in his daredevil life before, but they came hot and stinging now.
Something he had never known or thought of before entered into his
passion and purified it. He loved Joan. Did he love her well enough to
stand aside and let another take the sweetness and grace that was now
his own? Did he love her well enough to save her from the
poverty-stricken, shamed life she must lead with him? Did he love her
better than himself?

"I ain't fit to think of her," he groaned. "I never did a decent thing
in my life, as they say. But how can I give her up--God, how can I?"

He lay still a long time after that, until the mo