“Yes.  ’Twas like her, wasn’t it?  She said she knew I’d hear the yarn when I got to Trumet, but she wanted me to hear it just as it was, and nobody but she and Grace and you knew the whole truth about it.  So she come.  I’m glad she did; not that I shouldn’t have done the same, whoever told me, but—­”

“Nat, I want to tell you something.  Something that only one other person knows.  Grace doesn’t know it yet.  Neither does Aunt Keziah—­the whole of it.  And if she knew I told you even a part I’m afraid she would, as she would say, ‘skin me alive.’  But I owe her—­and you—­more than I could repay if I lived a thousand years.  So I’m going to tell and take the consequences.”

The captain looked at him.  “Well!” he exclaimed.  “What’s comin’ now?  More secrets?  Blessed if this ain’t gettin’ more excitin’ than the South Seas.  I used to think excitement in Trumet was scurcer than cream in poorhouse coffee, but I’ll have to change my mind.”

“Nat, when—­that morning after your father died and after you and Grace had agreed to—­to—­”

“To do somethin’ neither of us wanted to do?  Yes, I know.  Go ahead.”

“That morning Aunt Keziah came home to the parsonage and broke the news to me.  She did it as only she could do such a thing, kindly and pityingly and—­”

“Of course.  That’s Keziah.”

“Yes.  Well, as you can imagine, I was almost crazy.  I made a fool of myself, I expect; refused to believe her, behaved disgracefully, and at last, when I had to believe it, threatened to run away and leave my work and Trumet forever, like a coward.  She made me stay.”

“Did, hey?”

“Yes.  She showed me it was my duty to face the music.  When I whimpered about my troubles she told me her own story.  Then I learned what trouble was and what pluck was, too.  She told me about her marriage and—­excuse me for speaking of what isn’t my business; yet it is mine, in a way—­she told me about you.”

Captain Hammond did not answer.  His good natured face clouded and he shifted in his chair.

“She told me of you, Nat, all about you—­and herself.  And she told me something else, which explains why she felt she must send you away, why she thought your marriage to Grace would be a good thing.”

“I know.  She told you that that darn scamp Anse Coffin was alive.”

The minister started violently.  He gasped in surprise.

“You knew it?  You knew it?” he stammered.

“I know it now.  Have known it for over a year.  My findin’ it out was one of the special Providences that’s been helpin’ along this last voyage of mine.  My second mate was a Hyannis man, name of Cahoon.  One day, on that pesky island, when we was eatin’ dinner together, he says to me, ‘Cap’n,’ he says, ‘you’re from Trumet, ain’t you?’ I owned up.  ’Know anybody named Coffin there?’ says he.  I owned up to that, too.  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I met her husband last trip I was in the Glory of the Wave.’  I stared at him.  ‘Met his ghost, you mean,’ I says.  ’He’s been dead for years, and a good thing, too.  Fell overboard and, not bein’ used to water, it killed him.’