Helen sat down for a moment, putting her elbows on the table and resting her face on her hands.  So of course I went to her, and stroked her head, and she looked at me with eyes that were full of tears.

“I’m ashamed,” she said.  “At first I thought just as you did.  I was sure he had been drinking.  And he seemed so awfully rude when he motioned me away.  But he could hardly drag himself, the poor fellow, and he was trying to keep me away from him, because he was afraid for me.”

She was utterly disconsolate, and I could only keep on stroking the child’s head as I used to, when she came to seek consolation for babyish sorrows.  Of course I was worried about her, and realized how helpless I was.  She hadn’t grown over night, naturally, yet something appeared to have been added to her stature.  She was a woman now, full of the instincts of womanhood, and she was escaping from my influence.  Her life was shaping itself independently of me.  It is pretty tough, Jennie, to see one’s ewe lamb slipping away.  She loves me dearly, I know it, but she is now flowering into something that will never be entirely mine again, and the realization of it is cutting my heart.

After a moment she was restless again, and we went out on the porch.  We could hear Susie Sweetapple messing about in her kitchen, whose destinies she again cheerfully controls, and presently some men came down the road, carrying a bed.

“’Un says he’ve got ter have his bed at Frenchy’s,” one of them explained to me.

“’Un’s scared to give the diphtherias ter Sammy’s young ’uns.”

They started again, wiping their brows, for the late September day was growing warm, and soon after we saw a small boat entering the cove and Helen, who seems to know everything about this place, declared that it was not one of our boats, as she calls the fleet at Sweetapple Cove.  It reached the dock and a man jumped out while the sails were still slatting.

Susie had stuck her head out of the window.

“’Un’s parson comin’,” she announced.

Mr. Barnett hastened towards us as fast as his little legs would carry him.  He passed Frenchy’s house, not knowing that the doctor was there, and stopped in surprise when he saw us.

“I thought I was too late!” he exclaimed.  “We saw the Snowbird flying, miles away, and I thought I should never see you again.”

“The doctor is at Frenchy’s!” cried Helen.  “He is dreadfully ill.  Please go and see what you can do for him.”

“I’ll go at once,” he replied.  “We intercepted the mail-boat and I have a letter for you, Mr. Jelliffe, and one for the doctor.  I hear he saved that man’s life, over to the Bay.  Been up with him day and night.  You can’t understand what it means to us to have a man like him here, who permeates us all with his own brave confidence.  The blessing of it!  It was a terrible storm that he went through when he walked over to the Bay.  It is an awful country, and his steps were surely guided over pitfalls and rocks.”