The captain continued, his face brightening, his voice full of hope: 

“And your troubles are all over now, Miss Jane; your name will be cleared up, and so will Archie’s, and the doctor’ll git his own, and Lucy kin look everybody in the face.  See what Bart says,” and he handed her the open letter.

Jane read it word by word to the end and handed it back to the captain.  Once in the reading she had tightened her grasp on her chair as if to steady herself, but she did not flinch; she even read some sentences twice, so that she might be sure of their meaning.

In his eagerness the captain had not caught the expression of agony that crossed her face as her mind, grasping the purport of the letter, began to measure the misery that would follow if Bart’s plan was carried out.

“I knew how ye’d feel,” he went on, “and I’ve been huggin’ myself ever since it come when I thought how happy ye’d be when I told ye; but I ain’t so sure ’bout Lucy.  What do you think?  Will she do what Bart wants?”

“No,” said Jane in a quiet, restrained voice; “she will not do it.”

“Why?” said the captain in a surprised tone.  He was not accustomed to be thwarted in anything he had fixed his mind upon, and he saw from Jane’s expression that her own was in opposition.

“Because I won’t permit it.”

The captain leaned forward and looked at Jane in astonishment.

“You won’t permit it!”

“No, I won’t permit it.”

“Why?” The word came from the captain as if it had been shot from a gun.

“Because it would not be right.”  Her eyes were still fixed on the captain’s.

“Well, ain’t it right that he should make some amends for what he’s done?” he retorted with increasing anger.  “When he said he wouldn’t marry her I druv him out; now he says he’s sorry and wants to do squarely by her and my hand’s out to him.  She ain’t got nothin’ in her life that’s doin’ her any good.  And that boy’s got to be baptized right and take his father’s name, Archie Holt, out loud, so everybody kin hear.”

Jane made no answer except to shake her head.  Her eyes were still on the captain’s, but her mind was neither on him nor on what fell from his lips.  She was again confronting that spectre which for years had lain buried and which the man before her was exorcising back to life.

The captain sprang from his seat and stood before her; the words now poured from his lips in a torrent.

“And you’ll git out from this death blanket you been sleepin’ under, bearin’ her sin; breakin’ the doctor’s heart and your own; and Archie kin hold his head up then and say he’s got a father.  You ain’t heard how the boys talk ’bout him behind his back.  Tod Fogarty’s stuck to him, but who else is there ’round here?  We all make mistakes; that’s what half the folks that’s livin’ do.  Everything’s been a lie—­nothin’ but lies—­for near twenty years.  You’ve lived a lie motherin’