heer me?"

But Dame Charter's optimism was beginning to take heart again and to
spread its wings.

"Ah, my dear, you don't know what good things do in this life
continually crop up. A letter from your father, possibly withheld by
that wicked Madam Bonnet--which is what Dickory and I both think--or
some good words from the town that your father has sold his ship, and is
on his way home. Nobody knows what good news that Dickory may bring with
him."

The poor girl actually smiled. She was young, and in the heart of youth
there is always room for some good news, or for the hope of them.

But the smile vanished altogether when she went to her room and wrote a
letter to Martin Newcombe. In this letter, which was a long one, she
told her lover how troubled she had been. That she had nothing now to
ask him about the bad news he had, in his kindness, forborne to tell
her, and that when he saw Dickory Charter he might say to him from her
that there was no need to make any further inquiries about her father;
she knew enough, and far too much--more, most likely, than any one in
Bridgetown knew. Then she told him of Captain Vince and the dreadful
errand of the corvette Badger.

Having done this, Kate became as brave as any captain of a British
man-of-war, and she told her lover that he must think no more of her; it
was not for him to pay court to the daughter of a pirate. And so, she
blessed him and bade him farewell.

When she had signed and sealed this letter she felt as if she had torn
out a chapter of her young life and thrown it upon the fire.

CHAPTER XI

BAD WEATHER

When Dickory Charter sailed away from the island of Jamaica, his reason,
had it been called upon, would have told him that he had a good stout
brig under him on which there were people and ropes and sails and
something to eat and drink. But in those moments of paradise he did not
trouble his reason very much, and lived in an atmosphere of joy which he
did not attempt to analyze, but was content to breathe as if it had been
the common air about him. He was going away from every one he loved, and
yet never before had he been so happy in going to any one he loved. He
cared to talk to no one on board, but in company with his joy he stood
and gazed westward out over the sea.

He was but little younger than she was, and yet that difference, so
slight, had lifted him from things of earth and had placed him in that
paradise where he now dwelt.

So