Valentine Jernam made no reply to these observations. It is possible that he scarcely heard them. The punch came presently; but he pushed the bowl towards Joyce, and bade that gentleman dispense the mixture. His own glass remained before him untouched, while the foreign seamen and Joyce Harker emptied the bowl. When the girl sang, he listened; when she sat in a listless attitude, in the pauses between her songs, he watched her face. Until she had finished her last song, and left the platform, leading her blind companion by the hand, the captain of the 'Pizarro' seemed like a creature under the influence of a spell. There was only one exit from the room, so the singing-girl and her grandfather had to pass along the narrow space between the two rows of tables. Her dark stuff dress brushed against Jernam as she passed him. To the last, his eyes followed her with the same entranced gaze. When she had gone, and the door had closed upon her, he started suddenly to his feet, and followed. He was just in time to see her leave the house with her grandfather, and with a big, ill-looking man, half-sailor, half-landsman, who had been drinking at the bar. The landlord was standing behind the bar, drawing beer, as Jernam looked out into the street, watching the receding figures of the girl and her two companions. "She's a pretty girl, isn't she?" said the landlord, as Jernam shut the door. "She is, indeed!" cried the sailor. "Who is she?--where does she come from?--what's her name?" "Her name is Jenny Milsom, and she lives with her father, a very respectable man." "Was that her father who went out with her just now?" "Yes, that's Tom Milsom." "He doesn't look very respectable. I don't think I ever set eyes on a worse-looking fellow." "A man can't help his looks," answered the landlord, rather sulkily; "I've known Tom Milsom these ten years, and I've never known any harm of him." "No, nor any good either, I should think, Dennis Wayman," said a man who was lounging at the bar; "Black Milsom is the name we gave him over at Rotherhithe. I worked with him in a shipbuilder's yard seven years ago: a surly brute he was then, and a surly brute he is now; and a lazy, skulking vagabond into the bargain, living an idle life out at that cottage of his among the marshes, and eating up his pretty daughter's earnings." "You seem to know Milsom's business as well as you do your own, Joe Dermot," answered the landlord, with some touch of anger in his tone. "It's no use looking savage at me, Dennis," returned Dermot; "I never did trust Black Milsom, and never will. There are men who would take your life's blood for the price of a gallon of beer, and I think Milsom is one of 'em." Valentine Jernam listened attentively to this conversation--not because he was interested in Black Milsom's character, but because he wanted to hear anything that could enlighten him about the girl who had awakened such a new sentiment in his breast.