)
"I am thinking he'll be real glad to see her, for she's a real
respectable woman."
"Who?" asked Josephine, puzzled.
"Prince Edward, that owns the island," said O'Shea. "And she's that down
in the mouth, it's no comfort for me to have her; and she can take the
baby and welcome. It's a fair sea." He looked to the south as he spoke.
"I'd risk both her and the brat on it; and Skipper Pierre is getting
ready to take the boat across the ice."
Caius saw that resolution had fled from Josephine. She too looked at the
calm blue southern sea, and agonized longing came into her eyes. It
seemed to Caius too cruel, too horribly cruel, that she should be
tortured by this temptation. Because he knew that to her it could be
nothing but temptation, he sat silent when O'Shea, seeing that the
lady's gaze was afar, signed to him for aid; and because he hoped that
she might yield he was silent, and did not come to rescue her from the
tormentor.
O'Shea gave him a look of undisguised scorn; but since he would not woo,
it appeared that this man was able to do some wooing for him.
"Of course," remarked O'Shea, "I see difficulties. If the doctor here
was a young man of parts, I'd easier put ye and Mammy in his care; but
old Skipper Pierre is no milksop."
Josephine looked, first alert, as if suspecting an ill-bred joke, and
then, as O'Shea appeared to be speaking to her quite seriously,
forgetting that Caius might overhear, there came upon her face a look of
gentle severity.
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