“Yes, you will.  You must tell me everything.”

“Well, I shan’t.”

“Very well.  Then I shall go straight to Uncle Shad.”

“To who?  To Cap’n Shad!  Oh, my godfreys mighty!  You go to him and see what he’ll say!  Just go!  Why, he’d shut up tighter’n a clam at low water and he’d give you fits besides.  Go to Cap’n Shad and ask about Ed Farmer!  My soul!  You try it!  Aw, don’t be foolish, Mary-’Gusta.”

“I’m not going to be foolish, Isaiah.  If I go to Uncle Shad I shall tell him that it was through you I learned there was such a person as the Farmer man and that there was a secret connected with him, that it was a disagreeable secret, that—­”

“Hush!  Land sakes alive!  Mary-’Gusta, don’t talk so!  Why, if you told Cap’n Shad he’d—­I don’t know what he wouldn’t do to me.  If he knew I told you about Ed Farmer he’d—­I swan to man I believe he’d pretty nigh kill me!”

“Well, you’ll soon know what he will do, for unless you tell me the whole story, I shall certainly go to him.”

“Aw, Mary-’Gusta—­”

“I surely shall.  And if he won’t tell me I shall go to someone outside the family—­to Judge Baxter, perhaps.  He would tell me, I’m sure, if I asked.  No, Isaiah, you tell me.  And if you do tell me all freely and frankly, keeping nothing back, I’ll say nothing to Uncle Shad or Uncle Zoeth.  They shall never know who told.”

Mr. Chase wrung his hands.  Ever since he had been cook at the white house by the shore he had had this duty laid upon him, the duty of keeping his lips closed upon the name of Edgar Farmer and the story connected with that name.  When Captain Shadrach first engaged him for his present situation the Captain had ordered him never to speak the name or mention the happenings of that time.  And after little Mary Lathrop became a regular and most important member of the family, the command was repeated.  “She mustn’t ever know if we can help it, Isaiah,” said Shadrach, solemnly.  “You know Zoeth and how he feels.  For his sake, if nothin’ else, we mustn’t any of us drop a hint so that she will know.  She’ll find out, I presume likely, when she gets older; there’ll be some kind soul around town that’ll tell her, consarn ’em; but we shan’t tell her; and if you tell her, Isaiah Chase, I’ll—­I declare to man I’ll heave you overboard!”

And now after all these years of ignorance during which the expected had not happened and no one of the village gossips had revealed the secret to her—­now, here she was, demanding that he, Isaiah Chase, reveal it, and threatening to go straight to Captain Gould and tell who had put her upon the scent.  No wonder the cook and steward wrung his hands in despair; the heaving overboard was imminent.

Mary, earnest and determined as she was to learn the truth, the truth which she was beginning to believe might mean so much to her, nevertheless could not help pitying him.