“‘Why can’t you?’ he kept sayin’.  ’But why can’t you?  Ain’t she a girl anyone would be proud to have for a wife?’ ’Course there was no answer to that but yes.  Then back he comes again with ‘Then why can’t you?’ At last, bein’ frightened, as I said, that he might have another shock or somethin’, I said I’d think it over and come away and left him.  And I come straight to you.  Keziah, what shall I do?  What can you say to help me?”

Keziah was silent.  She was looking, not at her companion, but at the carpet center of one of the braided rugs on the floor.  Her face was very grave and the lines about her mouth seemed to deepen.  Her hands, clasped in her lap, tightened one upon the other.  But her voice was calm when, at last, she spoke.

“Nat,” she said, “there’s only one thing I can say.  And that’s what your father said:  Why can’t you?”

The captain sprang from his chair.

“What?” he cried incredulously.  “What are you sayin’?”

“Just what your father said, Nat.  Why can’t you marry Grace?  She’s a dear, good girl and—­”

“That be—­keelhauled!  Keziah Coffin, you sit there and ask me why I can’t marry her!  You do?”

“Yes, Nat.”

“Keziah, you’re crazy!  Don’t talk to me like that.  We’re not jokin’ now.  You know why I can’t marry her, nor anyone else in this round world but you.”

“Nat, I can’t marry you.”

“I know, I know.  You’re always sayin’ that.  But you don’t mean it.  You can’t mean it.  Why, you and me have been picked out for each other by the Almighty, Keziah.  I swear I believe just that.  We went together when we were boy and girl, to parties and such.  We was promised when I first went to sea.  If it hadn’t been for that fool row we had—­and ’twas all my fault and I know it—­you never would have let that da—­that miserable Anse Coffin come near you.  And when ’twas too late and you’d married him, the mean, drunken, cruel—­”

“Hush, Nat! hush!  Stop it!”

“He was, and you know he was.  Yes, and worse besides.  Runnin’ off and leavin’ a wife like you to—­Oh, my God! when I think I might have been your husband to look out for you and take care of you!  That you might have been with me on board my ships.  That, when I come down the companion on stormy nights I might have found you there to comfort me and—­O Keziah! we aren’t young any more.  What’s the use of foolin’?  I want you.  I’m goin’ to have you.  Coffin is dead these ten years.  When I heard he was drowned off there in Singapore, all I could say was:  ’Serve him right!’ And I say it now.  I come home then more determined to get you.  Say yes, and let’s be happy.  Do!”

“I can’t, Nat.”

“Why not?  For Heaven sakes! why not?  Don’t you care for me?  You’ve let me think—­well, at any rate, I have thought you did.  You used to.  Don’t you?”

“Nat, I—­I care for you more than anybody else on earth.  But I can’t marry you.  Oh, don’t keep askin’ it!  Please don’t.  I can’t marry you, Nat.  No!”