Little by little the captain’s devotion to Betty’s interests, and the outspoken way in which he praised her efforts to maintain herself, began to have their effect. People who had passed her by without a word, as they met her on the road, volunteered a timid good-morning, which was answered by a slight nod of the head by Betty. Even one of the Nevins girls—the younger one—had joined her and walked as far as the milliner’s, with a last word on the doorstep, which had detained them both for at least two minutes in full sight of the other girls who were passing the shop. Betty met all advances kindly, but with a certain reserve of manner. She appreciated the good motive, but in her own eyes it did not palliate her fault,—that horrible crime of ingratitude, selfishness, and waywardness, the memory of which hung over her night and day like a pall. Most of her former acquaintances respected her reserve,—all except Carleton. Whenever he met her under Captain Joe’s roof he greeted her with a nod, but on the road he had more than once tried to stop and talk to her. At first the attempt had been made with a lifting of the hat and a word about the weather, but the last time he had stopped in front of her and tried to take her hand. “What’s the matter with you?” he said in a coaxing tone. “I ain’t going to hurt you.” Betty darted by him, and reached the shop all out of breath. She said nothing to any one about her encounter, not being afraid of him in the daytime, and not wanting her affairs talked of any more. If Caleb knew how Betty lived, he never mentioned it to Captain Joe or Aunty Bell. He would sometimes ask after her health and whether she was working too hard, but never more than that. One Saturday night—it was the week Betty had hurt her foot and could not go to the shop—Caleb came down to Captain Joe’s and called him outside the kitchen door. It was pay-day with the men, and Caleb had in his hand the little envelope, still unopened, containing his month’s pay. The lonely life he led had begun to tell upon the diver. The deathly pallor that had marked his face the first few days after his wife’s departure was gone, and the skin was no longer shrunken, but the sunken cheeks remained, and the restless, eager look in the eyes that told of his mental strain. Caleb was in his tarpaulins; it was raining at the time. “Come in, Caleb, come in!” cried Captain Joe in a cheery voice, laying his hand on the diver’s shoulder. “Take off yer ileskins.” The captain never despaired of bringing husband and wife together, somehow. Betty was sitting inside the kitchen, reading by the kerosene lamp, out of sound of the voices.