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Updated: October 14, 2025
The door of the Penelles cottage was wide open, and he stood a moment looking into it. The place had an Homeric simplicity and beauty which touched his sense of fitness. On the snow-white hearth there was a handful of red fire, and the bright black hob held the shining kettle. A rug of knitted bits of many-coloured cloths was before it, and on this rug stood John's big cushioned chair.
Penelles could remember her small pink feet in the tide, when they were baby feet scarce able to stand alone. As she grew older she often begged to go to sea with the fishers, and on warm summer nights she had lain in the boat, and talked to him and his mates, and sung them such wild, sweet songs that the men vowed she charmed the fish into the nets.
Nothing but her change of name and, perhaps, a little money would remain to testify that Denas Penelles had ever been Denasia Tresham. Do as she would, she could not keep these thoughts apart from her memories of her lover and her husband.
Why did I? Just because it was for John Penelles' little girl, and I thought mayhap she'd take a warning from me. Don't you read them letters, my dear. If you do, let the words go in at one ear and out of the other. Roland Tresham! he be nothing to trust to!
Penelles loved her with a sure affection; he trusted in her. In every strait of his life he went to her for comfort or advice. He could not have imagined a single day without Joan to direct it. For his daughter Denas he had a love perhaps not stronger, but quite different in kind. Denas was his only living child. Denas loved the sea.
"Jove!" ejaculated Roland. "I should not wonder. You know, Elizabeth, she was always an early visitor. Shall I go and see?" "Frederick will go. Frederick, ask the young person her name." In a few moments Frederick returned and said, "Miss Penelles is the name." Then Robert Burrell and Roland both looked at Elizabeth.
"There then, I thought Denas had more sense than to trouble herself or you, father, with the like of him. Your new frock is home, Denas, and pretty enough, my dear. Go and look at it before it be too dim to see." Denas was glad to escape to her room, and Penelles turned suddenly silent and said no more until he had smoked another pipe on his own door-step.
It was indeed true that some person had sent to the Penelles cottage a London paper, in which there was a large picture of Denasia and the admiral dancing the famous hornpipe.
In one of his visits to St. Penfer, about two years previous to this Easter Eve, Roland Tresham had met Denas Penelles. At that time he had been much interested in her. The little fisher-girl with her piquant face, her strange haunting voice, and her singular self-possession was a charming study.
It was presumed, at least, that everyone was singing a prayer for the heathen. Only Joan Penelles made no effort to think of India or Africa. Her face, full of radiant assurance, looked confidently over the crowd, seeking her husband's mutual glance of pleasure. Her faith had been justified. Her girl was an honourable wife the wife of a gentleman well known to all.
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