eadache and could not set me home as she
always does."

"You should have come home alone. There was nothing to fear you."

"'Tis the first time."

"And, my dear, 'tis the last time. Mind that! 'Twill be a bad hour for
Roland Tresham if I see him making love to my girl again."

"He didn't say a word of love to me, father."

"Aw, then, he was looking it--more shame to him, not to give looks
words."

"Cannot a man look at a pretty girl? I call that nonsense, father."

"Roland Tresham can't look at you, Denas, any more as I saw him
looking at you to-night--bold and free, and sure and laughing to his
own heart for the clever he was, and the devil in his eyes and on his
tongue. 'Twas all wrong, my dear, or I wouldn't be feeling so hot and
angry about it. I wouldn't be feeling as if my heart was cut loose
from its moorings and sinking down and down as deep as fear can send
it."

"You might trust me, father."

"Aw, my sweet girl, there's times an angel can't be trusted, or so
many wouldn't have lost themselves. It takes a man to know men and all
the wickedness mixed up in their flesh and blood. There's your mother,
Denas--God bless her!"

Joan came strolling forward to meet them, her large, handsome face
beaming and shining with love and pride. But she was immediately
sensitive to the troubled, angry atmosphere in which her husband and
child walked, and she looked into John's face with the inquiry in her
eyes.

"Denas is vexed about Roland Tresham, mother."

"There then, I thought Denas had more sense than to trouble herself or
you, father, with the like of him. Your new frock is home, Denas, and
pretty enough, my dear. Go and look at it before it be too dim to
see."

Denas was glad to escape to her room, and Penelles turned suddenly
silent and said no more until he had smoked another pipe on his own
door-step.

Then he went into the cottage and sat down. Joan was by the fire with
her knitting in her hand, and softly humming to herself her favourite
hymn:

"When quiet in my house I sit."

Penelles let her finish, and then he told her all that he saw and all
that he thought and every word he and Denas had spoken. "And I said
what was right, didn't I, Joan?" he asked.

"No words at all are sometimes better than good words, John. When the
wicked was before him, even David didn't dare to say good and right
words."

"David wasn't a St. Penfer fisherman, Joan, and the wicked men of his
day were a differen