“He doesn’t like my sex,” she declared.  “In fact he makes me cross sometimes with his scornful attitude to us.  He’s as bad as Uncle Ben, who is a very hard-hearted old bachelor.  He says, ’Women, priests, and poultry never have enough.’  But I say that men are far greedier than women, and always were.”

The sailor laughed and they went out upon the terrace for a time where soon the early dusk began to fall.  The storm had not yet developed and there was a fierce and fiery light over the west at sunset while a tremendous wind blew the sky almost clear for a time.  When the Start lighthouse opened a white, starry eye over the deepening purple of the sea, and heavy waves beat below them in hollow thunder, they returned to the house and Mr. Redmayne showed Brendon curiosities.  They drank tea at five o’clock and an hour later the detective went on his way.  A general invitation had been extended to him and the old sailor expressly declared that it would give him pleasure to receive Mark as a guest at any time.  It was a suggestion that tempted Brendon not a little.

“You’ve done a wonderful thing,” said Jenny, as she saw him to the outer gate.  “You’ve quite won my uncle, and really that’s a feat.”

“Would it bore you if I fell in with his proposal and came down for a few days after Christmas?” he asked, and she assured him that it would give her pleasure.

Heartened a little he went his way, but the wave of cheerfulness set flowing by her presence soon ebbed again.  He felt full of suspicion and half believed her indifference regarding Doria to be assumed.  He guessed that she would be jealous to give no sign until the days of her mourning were numbered, but he felt a melancholy conviction that when another summer was passed, Jenny Pendean would take a second husband.

He debated the wisdom of presently returning to “Crow’s Nest” and felt a strong inclination to do so.  Little guessing that he would be there again on the morrow, he determined to remind Bendigo Redmayne of his invitation in early spring.  By that time much might have happened, for he intended to correspond with Jenny, or at any fate take the first step in a correspondence.

The moon had risen as he pursued his lonely road and it shone clear through a gathering scud that threatened soon to overwhelm the silver light.  Clouds flew fast and, above Brendon’s head, telegraph wires hummed the song of a gathering storm.  The man’s thoughts proceeded as irregularly as the fitful and shouting wind.  He weighed each word that Jenny had said and strove to understand each look that she had given him.

He tried to convince himself that Bendigo Redmayne’s theory must, after all, be false, and he assured himself that by no possibility could the widow of Michael Pendean ever lose her sad heart to this stranger from Italy.  The idea was out of the question, for surely a woman of such fine mould, so suddenly and tragically bereaved, would never find in this handsome chatterbox, throbbing with egotism, any solace for sorrow, or promise for future contentment.  In theory his view seemed sound.  Yet he knew, even while he reflected, that love in its season may shatter all theories and upset even the most consistent of characters.