ng.

O'Shea came in and shut the door behind him, and went into the inner
room and sat down on the foot of the bed. Caius followed, holding the
candle, and inspected him again.

"Sit down, man." O'Shea made an impatient gesture at the light. "Get
into bed, if ye will; there's no hurry that I know of."

Caius stood still, looking at the farmer, and such nervousness had come
upon him that he was almost trembling with fear, without the slightest
notion as yet of what he feared.

"In the name of Heaven----" he began.

"Yes, Heaven!" O'Shea spoke with hard, meditative inquiry. "It's Heaven
she trusts in. What's Heaven going to do for her, I'd loike to know?"

"What is it?" The question now was hoarse and breathless.

"Well, I'll tell you what it is if ye'll give me time"--the tone was
sarcastic--"and you needn't spoil yer beauty by catching yer death of
cold. 'Tain't nicessary, that I know of. There's things that are
nicessary; there's things that will be nicessary in the next few days;
but that ain't."

For the first time Caius did not resent the caustic manner. Its
sharpness was turned now towards an impending fate, and to Caius O'Shea
had come as to a friend in need. Mechanically he sat in the middle of
the small bed, and huddled its blankets about him. The burly farmer, in
fur coat and cap, sat in wooden-like stillness; but Caius was like a man
in a fever, restless in his suspense. The candle, which he had put upon
the floor, cast up a yellow light on all the scant furniture, on the two
men as they thus talked to each other, with pale, tense faces, and threw
distorted shadows high up on the wooden walls.

Perhaps it was a relief to O'Shea to torture Caius some time with this
suspense. At last he said: "He's in the schooner."

"Le Maitre? How do you know?"

"Well, I'll tell ye how I know. I told ye there was no hurry."

If he was long now in speaking, Caius did not know it. Upon his brain
crowded thoughts and imaginations: wild plans for saving the woman he
loved; wild, unholy desires of revenge; and a wild vision of misery in
the background as yet--a foreboding that the end might be submission to
the worst pains of impotent despair.

O'Shea had taken out a piece of paper, but did not open it.

"'Tain't an hour back I got this. The skipper of the schooner and me
know each other. He's been bound over by me to let me know if that man
ever set foot in his ship to come to this place, and he's managed to get
a