"I mean that your thoughts are always straightforward and--well, honest, like yourself.... But we mustn't waste time. I don't know when we shall have another opportunity to be together like this, and there are some things I must say to you. Cap'n Kendrick, you know--you have heard the news?" "News?... Oh, you mean about Elvira's inheritin' all that money?" "That, of course. But that wasn't the news I meant. I mean about her eloping with--with that man." Troubled even as Sears was at the sight of her evident distress, he could not but feel a thrill of satisfaction at the tone in which she referred to "that man." He nodded. "I've heard it," he said. "I guess likely I was about the first Bayporter that did hear it. When did you hear?" "A little while ago. He wrote--he wrote my mother a letter. It was at the post office this morning." "He did? He _didn't_! The low-lived scamp!" "Hush! Don't talk about him. Yes, he wrote her. _Such_ a letter! She showed it to me. So full of hypocrisy, and lies and--oh, can't you imagine what it was?" Kendrick's right fist tapped the table gently. "I guess likely I can," he said, grimly. "Well, some of these days I may run afoul of Egbert again. When I do----" The fist closed a little tighter. "You won't touch him. Promise me you won't. If you should, I---- Oh, dear! I think I should be afraid to touch your hands afterwards." Sears smiled. "It might be safer to use my boot," he admitted. "Your mother--how is she?" "Can't you imagine? I think--I hope it is her pride that is hurt more than anything. For some little time--well, ever since I found out that she was lending him money--I have done my best to make her see what he really is. But before that--oh, there is no use pretending, for you know--she was insane about him. And now, with the shock and the disillusionment and the shame, she is---- Oh, it is dreadful!" "Do the--er--rest of 'em over there know it yet?" "No, but they will very soon. And when they do! You know what some of them are, what they will say. We can't stay there, mother and I. We must go away--and we will." She was crying, and if ever a man yearned for the role of comforter, Sears Kendrick was that man. He tried to say something, but he was afraid to trust his own tongue; it might run away with him. And before his attempt was at all coherent, she went on. "Don't mind me," she said, hastily wiping her eyes. "I am nervous, and I have been through a bad hour, and--and I am acting foolishly, of course. I know that this is, in a way, the very best thing that could happen. This ends it, so far as mother is concerned. Oh, it might have been _so_ much worse! It looked as if it were going to be. Now she _knows_ what he is. I have known it, or been almost sure of it, for a long time. And you must have known it always, from the beginning. That is a part of what I came here for this morning. Please tell me how you knew and--and all about everything."