She realized that he was too courteous to ask whether her husband was dead or if there had been a divorce.

“I’m rather glad you haven’t heard, Donald,” she replied evenly.  “I much prefer to tell you myself; then you will understand why I cannot invite you into our house, and why you must not be seen talking to me here at the gate.  I am not married.  I have never been married.  My baby’s name is—­Brent, and I call him Donald, after the only male human being that has ever been truly kind to my father and me.”

“Ah,” said Donald quietly, “so that’s why he misses his father and appears to want one so very much.”

She gazed forlornly out to sea and answered with a brief nod.  Seemingly she had long since ceased to be tragic over her pitiful tragedy.

“Well,” he replied philosophically, “life is quite filled with a number of things, and some of them make for great unhappiness.”  He stooped and lifted the baby in his great arms.  “You’re named after me, sonny; so I think I’ll try to fill the gap and make you happy.  Do you mind, Nan, if I try my hand at foster-fathering?  I like children.  This little man starts life under a handicap, but I’ll see to it that he gets his chance in life—­far from Port Agnew, if you desire.”  She closed her eyes in sudden pain and did not answer.  “And whatever your opinion on the matter may be, Nan,” he went on, “even had I known yesterday of your sorrow, I should have called to-day just the same.”

“You call it my ‘sorrow!’” she burst forth passionately.  “Others call it my trouble—­my sin—­my disgrace.”

“And what does Caleb call it, Nan?”

“He doesn’t call it, Donald.  It hasn’t appeared to make any difference with him.  I’m still—­his little girl.”

“Well, I cannot regard you as anything but a little girl—­the same little girl that used to help Caleb and me sail the sloop.  I don’t wish to know anything about your sorrow, or your trouble, or your disgrace, or your sin, or whatever folks may choose to call it.  I just want you to know that I know that you’re a good woman, and when the spirit moves me—­which will be frequently, now that I have this young man to look after—­I shall converse with you at your front gate and visit you and your decent old father in this little house, and be damned to those that decry it.  I am the young laird of Tyee.  My father raised me to be a gentleman, and, by the gods, I’ll be one!  Now, Nan, take the boy and go in the house, because I see a rascally negro in the doorway of that shack yonder, and I have a matter to discuss with him.  Is that white woman his consort?”

Nan nodded again.  She could not trust herself to speak, for her heart was full to overflowing.

“Come here—­you!” Donald called to the negro.  The fellow slouched forth defiantly.  He was a giant mulatto, and his freckled face wore an evil and contemptuous grin.

“I’m Donald McKaye,” Donald informed him.  “I’m the new laird of Tyee.  I want you and that woman to pack up and leave.”