“Oh, I see,” said Pete, with a look of intelligence, and then, with a lofty wave of the hand, “She's like her husband, Mr. Kelly--not bothering much with letters at all.” “You'll be longing for a line, though, Capt'n--that's only natural.” “No news is good news--I can lave it with her.” “Of coorse, that's truth enough, yes! But still and for all, a taste of a letter--it's doing no harm, Capt'n--aisy writ, too, and sweet to get sometimes, you know--shows a woman isn't forgetting a man when she's away.” “Mr. Kelly! Mr. Kelly!” said Pete, with his hand before his face, palm outwards. “Not necessary? Well, I lave it with you. Good-night, Capt'n.” “Good-night to you, sir,” said Pete. He had laughed and tut-tutted, and lifted his eyebrows and his hands in mock protest and a pretence of indifference, but the postman's talk had cut him to the quick. “People are suspecting,” he thought. “They're saying things.” This made him swear, but a thought came behind that made him sweat instead. “Philip will be hearing them. They'll be telling him she doesn't write to me; that I don't know where she is; that she has left me, and that she's a bad woman.” To make Kate stand well with Philip was an aim that had no rival but one in Pete's reckoning--to make Philip stand well with Kate. Out of the shadow-land of his memory of the awful night of his bereavement, a recollection, which had been lying dead until then, came back now in its grave-clothes to torture him. It was what Cæsar had said of Philip's fight with Ross Christian. Philip himself had never mentioned it--that was like him. But when evil tongues told of Ross and hinted at mischief, Philip would know something already; he would be prepared, perhaps he would listen and believe. Two days longer Pete sat in the agony of this new terror and the dogged impatience of his old hope. “She'll write. She'll not lave me much longer.” But she did not write, and on the second night, before returning to the house from the gate, he had made his plan. He must silence scandal at all hazards. However his own heart might bleed with doubts and fears and misgivings, Philip must never cease to think that Kate was good and sweet and true. “Off to bed, Nancy,” he cried, heaving into the hall like a man in drink. “I've work to do to-night, and want the house to myself.” “Goodness me, is it yourself that's talking of bed, then?” said Nancy. “Seven in the everin', too, and the child not an hour out of my hands? And dear knows what work it is if you can't be doing it with good people about you.” “Come, get off, woman; you're looking tired mortal. The lil one's ragging you ter'ble. But what's it saying, Nancy--bed is half bread. Truth enough, too, and the other half is beauty. Get off, now. You're spoiling your complexion dreadful--I'll never be getting that husband for you.”