Pearl cried herself to sleep finally. She was ashamed after what had happened to face Mr. Helmford again. She thought not at all of Cap'n Jonah's threat which had created the fear of disaster in the Petty camp. She was only grateful to the old mariner for taking her part. Joe Helmford had spent a very unsatisfactory evening after the abrupt visit of Tom Petty and his mother. He was half determined to leave the house at the end of the week. These Pettys were almost unendurable. And then he began to wonder what effect his going so abruptly would have on Pearl Holden? He knew that she was treated unkindly by the Pettys. He had often seen tears in her eyes and Sarah's sharp, shrill voice could not fail to reach his ear on more than one occasion when she was berating her little drudge. Helmford had suddenly got a new revelation of Pearl's character. He had begun to appreciate not alone her sweetness but the real depth of her nature. The girl easily assimilated new things. Her mind was thirsty for knowledge. She was beginning already to blossom into a fuller mental development. This young man who heretofore had given such small thought to any woman found himself lying awake at night thinking of this girl. Physically she was charming, as well as sweet of nature. He visualized her as his sisters and cousins were wont to dress. Why, in appearance she would vie with the best of them. Her speech--well, of course, it was tinged somewhat by the environment in which she was born. But that was not a fault that could not be rectified, Helmford decided. When a young man allows his mind to run along in such vein, with any particular girl as the visioned object of his thoughts, he is bordering upon a state of feeling that leads directly to matrimony. But Joe Helmford drew back from this and resolutely refused to face it. He punched his pillow again and determinedly went to sleep. At the other end of the house, in the crooked little room over the kitchen, Cap'n Jonah was likewise wakeful. In the first place he was cold. Sarah had not given him bed-clothes enough. He had closed his window, which was against the tenets of a lifelong belief in fresh air, and still he shook in his bed. Running down stairs in his stocking feet to defend Pearly had chilled Cap'n Jonah to the bone. His teeth chattered. He could feel the tip of his nose turning to a numb lump of flesh. Icicles formed against the edge of the thin blanket where his breath was expelled. He could hear the ice cracking in his water pitcher. But even in such a plight Cap'n Jonah might have slept, at least fitfully, had it not been for his thoughts. His excitement and anger should have heated the old mariner so that physical cold could not touch him. He had given way to his temper and vented his rage in a way quite foreign to his habit. Cap'n Jonah usually had complete mastery of himself.