“I am married already,” she said.  “You see this ring.  Do you not know what it has meant to me, Bondo, since I first put it on?  Death, as you call it, cannot part Luke Merlyn and me.  ‘Heart and hand,’ he said.  Can I forget it?  My hand is free,—­but he holds it; and my heart is his.—­But I can serve you better than you ask for, Bondo Emmins.  You learned the name of the vessel that sailed from Havre and was lost.  Take a voyage.  Go to France.  See if Gabriel has any friends there who have a right to him, and will serve him better than I can; and if he has such friends, I myself will take Gabriel to them.  Yes, I will do it.—­You will love a sailor’s life, Bondo.  You were born for that.  Diver’s Bay is not the place for you.  I have long seen it.  The sea will serve you better than I ever could.  Go, and Clarice will thank you.  Oh, Bondo, I beg you!”

At these words the man so appealed to became scarlet.  He seemed to reflect on what Clarice had said,—­seriously to ponder; but his amazement at her words had almost taken away his power of speech.

“The Gabriel sailed from Havre,” said he, slowly, “If I went out as a deckhand in the next ship that sails”—­

“Yes!”

“To scour the country—­I hope I shan’t find what I look for; you couldn’t live without him.—­Very likely you will think me a fool for my pains.  You will not give me yourself.  You would have me take away the lad from you.”—­He looked at Clarice as if his words passed his belief.

“Yes, only do as I say,—­for I know it must be the best for us all.  There is nothing else to be done,—­no other way to live.”

“France is a pretty big country to hunt over for a man whose name you don’t know,” said Emmins, after a little pause.

“You can find what passengers sailed in the Gabriel,” answered Clarice, eager to remove every difficulty, and ready to contend with any that could possibly arise.  “The vessel was a merchantman.  Such vessels don’t take out many passengers.—­Besides, you will see the world.—­It is for everybody’s sake!  Not for mine only,—­no, truly,—­no, indeed!  May-be if another person around here had found Gabriel, they would never have thought of trying to find out who he belonged to.”

“I guess so,” replied Bondo, with a queer look.  “Only now be honest, Clarice; it’s to get rid of me, isn’t it?  But you needn’t take that trouble.  If you had only told me right out about Luke Merlyn”—­

While Bondo Emmins spoke thus, his face had unconsciously the very expression one sees on the face of the boy whose foot hovers a moment above the worm he means to crush.  The boy does not expect to see the worm change to a butterfly just then and there, and mount up before his very eyes toward the empyrean.  Neither did Bondo Emmins anticipate her quiet—­

“You knew about it all the while.”

“Not the whole,” said he,—­“that you were married to Luke, as you say”; and the fisherman looked hastily around him, as if he had expected to see the veritable Luke.