Black Dennis Nolan looked at her, straight into her sea-eyes, and felt the bitter-sweet spell of them again to the very depths of his being.  Her glance was the first to waver.  A veil of color slipped up softly across her pale cheeks.  Young as she was, she had seen other men gaze at her with that same light in their eyes.  They had all been young men, she reflected.  Others, in Paris and London, had looked with less of pure bewitchment and more of desire in their eyes.  She was not ignorant of her charms, her power, her equipment to pluck the pearl from the oyster of the world.  She could marry wealth; she could win wealth and more fame with her voice and beauty on the concert-stage; she could do both.  But in spite of her knowledge of the great world, her heart was neither blinded to the true things of worth nor entirely hardened.  If she ever married, it would be for wealth and position, as the world counted such things, but never a man—­lord or commoner—­who did not come to her with the light of pure witchery in his eyes.  She remembered, smiling down at the half-written letter to her New York agent, how that light had shone in the honest eyes of a young officer of the ship in which she had sailed from America to Europe.  Her reflections, which had passed through her brain with a swiftness beyond that of any spoken or written words, were interrupted by the skipper.

“I bes rich now,” he said thickly.

Mary Kavanagh lost color at that and turned her face away from them both, toward the fire in the wide chimney.  Flora Lockhart looked up at the speaker, puzzled, but still smiling faintly.  Her face was very beautiful and kind—­but with an elfin kindness that seemed not all womanly, scarcely all human.  Her beauty was almost too delicate, striking and unusual to bear the impress of a common-day kindness.  She laughed gently but clearly.

“I am glad you are rich,” she said.  “You are rich in virtues, I know—­all three of you.”

“I bes rich in gold an’ gear,” said the skipper.  “Rich as any marchant.”

“I am glad,” returned the girl.  “It will be pleasant for me, in the future, to always picture my preservers in comfort.  I hope you may continue to prosper, skipper—­you and all your people.  But here is the letter.  How will you get it to New York, do you think?”

The skipper advanced to the bed, and took the letter.  His fingers touched hers.

“I’ll be takin’ it to Witless Bay meself,” he stammered.  “Sure, that would be safest.  It bes a longish trip; but I’ll do it.”  He paused and stared down at the letter in his hand.  “But ’twould take me t’ree days an’ more, there an’ back—­an’ what would the men be doing wid me away?  The divil himself only knows!  Maybe they’d get to t’inkin’ agin as ye bes a witch.  I’ll be sendin’ Bill Brennen wid it, afore sun-up to-morrow.”

“And who will take it from Witless Bay to St. John’s?” asked Flora.

“Foxey Garge Hudson, the Queen’s own mail-carrier.  There bes a post-office in Witless Bay,” returned the skipper.  “He makes the trip to St. John’s once every week in winter-time, bar flurries an’ fog, an’ maybe twice every week in the summer-time.  If it be’d summer-time now I’d sail the letter right round to St. John’s in me fore-an’-aft schooner.”