Jane started forward and faced the now enraged man.

“You must not, captain—­you shall not speak to my sister that way!” she commanded.

The doctor stopped between them:  “You forget that she is a woman.  I forbid you to—­”

“I will, I tell ye, doctor!  It’s true, and you know it.”  The captain’s voice now dominated the room.

“That’s no reason why you should abuse her.  You’re too much of a man to act as you do.”

“It’s because I’m a man that I do act this way.  She’s done nothin’ but bring trouble to this town ever since she landed in it from school nigh twenty year ago.  Druv out that dead boy of mine lyin’ there, and made a tramp of him; throwed Archie off on Miss Jane; lied to the man who married her, and been livin’ a lie ever since.  And now she wants me to break my oath!  Damn her—­”

The doctor laid his hand over the captain’s mouth.  “Stop!  And I mean it!” His own calm eyes were flashing now.  “This is not the place for talk of this kind.  We are in the presence of death, and—­”

The captain caught the doctor’s wrist and held it like a vice.

“I won’t stop.  I’ll have it out—­I’ve lived all the lies I’m goin’ to live!  I told you all this fifteen year ago when I thought Bart was dead, and you wanted me to keep shut, and I did, and you did, too, and you ain’t never opened your mouth since.  That’s because you’re a man—­all four square sides of ye.  You didn’t want to hurt Miss Jane, and no more did I. That’s why I passed Archie there in the street; that’s why I turned round and looked after him when I couldn’t see sometimes for the tears in my eyes; and all to save that thing there that ain’t worth savin’!  By God, when I think of it I want to tear my tongue out for keepin’ still as long as I have!”

Lucy, who had shrunk back against the wall, now raised her head: 

“Coward!  Coward!” she muttered.

The captain turned and faced her, his eyes blazing, his rage uncontrollable: 

“Yes, you’re a thing, I tell ye !—­and I’ll say it ag’in.  I used to think it was Bart’s fault.  Now I know it warn’t.  It was yours.  You tricked him, damn ye!  Do ye hear?  Ye tricked him with yer lies and yer ways.  Now they’re over—­there’ll be no more lies—­not while I live!  I’m goin’ to strip ye to bare poles so’s folks ’round here kin see.  Git out of my way—­all of ye!  Out, I tell ye!”

The doctor had stepped in front of the infuriated man, his back to the closed door, his open palm upraised.

“I will not, and you shall not!” he cried.  “What you are about do to is ruin—­for Lucy, for Jane, and for little Ellen.  You cannot—­you shall not put such a stain upon that child.  You love her, you—­”

“Yes—­too well to let that woman touch her ag’in if I kin help it!” The fury of the merciless sea was in him now—­the roar and pound of the surf in his voice.  “She’ll be a curse to the child all her days; she’ll go back on her when she’s a mind to just as she did on Archie.  There ain’t a dog that runs the streets that would ‘a’ done that.  She didn’t keer then, and she don’t keer now, with him a-lyin’ dead there.  She ain’t looked at him once nor shed a tear.  It’s too late.  All hell can’t stop me!  Out of my way, I tell ye, doctor, or I’ll hurt ye!”