Joshua trembled with apprehension. "For Heaven's sake, sir," he implored, "speak more plainly!" "I intend to do so, Joshua; for this is the solemnest time of your life. I have considered the matter deeply, and I can see but one right thing to do; but I am running ahead too fast. Steady there, steady. As I said a time ago, here has been a woman's heart laid bare to you, and you have not suspected it. What woman, now? But 'tis not right to ask, mayhap." "Ask me any thing, sir; I will answer truly." "What woman do you love?" "Ellen." "Ellen? And Ellen only?" "And Ellen only. None other; nor ever shall, if it is given to man to know his heart." "Good! Answered like yourself; answered like the lad I used to see looking out on the river that runs to the sea; like the lad my old heart warmed to because there was honesty in his face; like the lad who has grown to be a man, and who sits afore me now with truth in his eyes." "Thank you for that, sir." "What woman does this lad, now grown to be a man, love? Ellen--the pretty Ellen, the truest-hearted, gentlest-hearted, kindest-hearted, dearest lass on all the high seas. What woman does Joshua's friend Dan love? That's a question I ask myself. 'Tis easily answered. Minnie--Minnie with the mermaid's hair, and with eyes bright as the stars. Does Minnie love Dan? Yes; but not as Dan wants her to love him. Why? Because there is some one in the way." "Who, sir?" Joshua was constrained to ask, but dreading the answer. "She loves Dan's friend Joshua better than she loves Dan. Let that friend, who sits afore me now, search his heart and his mind, and let him say what he thinks. He knows her nature; has been her friend since she was a girl; and, cunning as a woman may be, no woman can be cunning enough to hide her love always from the man she loves, though she may hide it from all the rest of the world. It happens sometimes in a man's life that he may be unconscious of a thing for years perhaps, it being present to him all the time, until, sometimes in one way, sometimes in another, a sudden light is thrown upon it, and he sees in a flash what he has been blind to all his life before." "You are right, sir," said Joshua sadly. "It has happened to me now. I have been blind."