"After all, I like the girl. She has a kind of nixie, tantalising, bewitching charm that would drive a crowd mad. She has a fresh, sympathetic voice, penetrating, too, as a clarion. Her folk-songs and her sea-songs go down to the bottom of a man's heart and into every corner of it. Now, if I could get her to London and have her taught how to manage her voice and face and person, if I had her taught how to dance--Jove! there is a fortune in it! Dressed in a fancy fisher costume, singing the casting songs and the boat songs--the calls and takes she knows so well--why, she would make a gas-lit theatre seem like the great ocean, and men would see the white-sailed ships go marching by, and the fishing cobbles, and the wide nets full of gleaming fish, and--and, by Jove! they would go frantic with delight. They would be at her feet. She would be the idol of London. She would sing full pockets empty. I should have all my desires, and now I have so few of them. What a prospect! But I'll reach it--I'll reach it, and all the fishers in St. Penfer's shall not hinder me!" He thought his plans over again, and then it was dark and he rose up to return home; but as he shook himself into the proper fit of his clothes and settled his hat at the correct angle, he laughed vauntingly and said: "I shall be even with you, John Penelles, before next Easter. I was not good enough for Denas, was I not? Well, she is going to work for me and for my pleasure and profit, John Penelles; going to make money for me to spend, John Penelles. My beautiful fisher-maid! I dare be bound she is dreaming of me now. Women! women! women! What dear little fools they are, to be sure!" He was quite excited and quite good-tempered now. A new plan was like a new fortune to Roland. He never took into consideration the contrariness of circumstances and of opposing human elements. His plans were perfect from his own standpoint; the standpoint of other people was out of his consideration. Never before had he conceived so clever a scheme for getting a livelihood made for him. There was really nobody but Denas to interfere with any of his arrangements, and Denas was under his control and could be made more so. This night he felt positive that he had "hit the very thing at last." He reached home late, but in exuberant spirits. Elizabeth was waiting for him. She was beautifully dressed, and in a moment he saw upon her hand the flash of large and perfect diamonds. "They were mother's, I suppose, and I have as much right--yes, more right--to them than she has." This was his first thought, but he did not express it. There was an air about Elizabeth that was quite new to him; he was curious and full of expectation as he seated himself beside her. She shook her head in a reproving manner. "You have been making love to Denas. I see it in your eyes, Roland. And you promised me you never would."