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Updated: June 14, 2025
Then she had seen Thornly drive past her one day with that white girl from Bluff Head. The pale, exquisite face had suddenly grown scarlet at the sight of Janet by the wayside, and Thornly had stared right ahead, taking no heed! Since that day the lack of joy had grown apace. She had gone to the hut upon the Hills and hung the tiny whistle upon the door latch. She would never call him again!
It might be their only moment. "I will wait," Janet whispered, clinging to him, "I will wait for you and Cap'n Daddy!" After Thornly was gone the unreality passed. The howling of the gale, and the memories that flooded the present loneliness, drove the sudden dream before them. While she stood housed and protected all that was dear to her, all that meant life to her, was out there in the storm!
A silence held the little group for a moment, and then Thornly went on: "He has suffered a lifetime of remorse. He is a lonely, sad man." "Ye hear that, Janet?" whispered Billy hoarsely, but his yearning eyes were fixed upon the little house across the bay. "Yes, my Cap'n, I hear," came in muffled tones. How much the dear voice sounded like that one which years ago had so named him!
"I'll meet you then at the train, my boy, at 7.50. I've business in the city. I always put up at the Holcomb; look me up after you've seen Katharine." "Good night, Mr. Devant, and again thank you!" Devant walked with Thornly to the outer door, and then to the windswept piazza. "It's sharp to-night," he said; "I'll soon have to give up Bluff Head.
Then Mark's eyes fell upon the canvas. "Cap'n!" he groaned, "look at this!" The two men stood spellbound before the easel, and Thornly watched them curiously. "It's her!" muttered Billy, "it's her! Poor little thing! she's jest drifted without a hand upon the tiller." The visitors forgot Thornly. "I didn't think I had more'n the right t' watch, Cap'n."
Oh! it comes to me just as Davy's Light comes of an early morning, when the fog lifts. What a mean, wretched thing I have been to let stings hurt, when that splendid picture waits for me!" A radiance spread over the wistful face. Thornly was dazzled and could only stare helplessly. "See," she had arisen, and stood before him in all her strong, young beauty; "you need me?
The two rough men turned toward the door. "When she tells ye," Billy paused to say, "she'll be wiser than what she is t'-day, poor little critter!" Thornly watched the men, in stern silence, until they passed from sight; then he went back to the easel. "Pimpernel," he whispered brokenly, "poor little wild flower, out of place among us all!"
Above even Billy's claim to her faithfulness was her promise to Thornly! There was one greater, now, in her life than Cap'n Billy. "And he has undertaken my task!" She pressed her burning cheek to the frosted glass. "I will trust him, and he shall trust me!"
Then he whistled gayly, hung up his coat and hat did not the listening girl know every movement? drew on the old paint besmirched jacket, and filled his pipe. "Dirty wineglasses!" he muttered, "bah! how the stale wine befouls this air! Outside you go to await your purification!" The glasses were set jinglingly upon the window ledge. Then Thornly came to the curtain and flung it heedlessly back.
It isn't in the order of things to trust a man with a new duty, when he failed with the last. There isn't any light to guide a man that's anchored by a dead duty." Then Devant went back into his lonely house and sat down before the dulling fire to think it out about Thornly. "He'll never go to any one but me, after he's seen Katharine," he thought. "He may not come to me.
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