"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 different kind of wicked men--they just thought of a bad thing and went and did it. They didn't plot and plan how to make others wicked for them and with them." "What do you know wrong of Roland Tresham, John?" "What do I know wrong of Trelawny's little Jersey bull? Nothing. It never hurt me yet. But I see the devil in his eyes and in the lift of his feet and the toss of his horns and the switch of his tail, and I know right well he'd rip me to pieces if I'd only give him the chance. That's the way I know Roland Tresham is a bad one. I see the devil in the glinting of his eyes and the mock of his smile, and I wouldn't have been more sick frightened to-night if I'd seen a tiger purring around Denas than I was when I got the first glimpse of Tresham bending down, coaxing and flattering our little girl. He's a bad man, sent with sorrow and shame wherever he goes, and I know it just as I know the long dead roll of the waves and the white creeping mist--like a dirty thief--which makes me cry out at sea 'All hands to reef! Quick! All hands to reef!'" "There then, John, if wrong and danger there be, what must be done?" "Keep the little maid out of it. Don't let her go to Mr. Tresham's. I wouldn't hear tell of it. If Denas would only listen a bit to Tris Penrose, he'd be the man for her--a good man, a good sailor, and he do love the very stones Denas steps on, he do for sure." "She used to like Tris, but these few months her love has all quailed away." "'Tis dreadful! dreadful! Why did God Almighty make women so? Here be good love going a-begging to them and getting nothing but a frown and a hard word, while devil's love is fretted for and heart-nursed. Whatever is a woman's love made of, I do wonder?" As he asked the question he knocked his pipe against the jamb to clean it out, and then quickly turned his head, for an inner door opened and Denas peeped out and then came forward and put her arm around his neck and said: