Medbury descended to his room, opened the lid of his desk, and fumbled about aimlessly with hands that trembled; then, as if he had found what he had been looking for, he lowered the lid, and, leaning his elbows upon it, stood looking moodily before him. He told himself that he was glad it was over; anything was better than the long uncertainty that had held him bound in chains for years. But no one should know that he cared, and he glanced at the little hand-glass under his window to see if his face had changed. It cheered him to note no difference since morning, and, with boyish affectation, he smiled at his image in the glass. But suddenly, as if to test his strength, his mind flashed the image of Hetty before him—her face turned up to him smilingly, as he had often seen it, her eyes, every feature. With a groan he dropped his head upon his arms.

He put the mood away from him sternly, and began to debate with himself whether it would be better to keep on loving her all his days, going to his grave a sad and lonely man, or gaily to turn to another at once, to show how little he cared. He came to no decision because he could not determine which course would hurt her more.

It was his watch below, but he could not sleep, so taking his log-book, pen, and ink out into the cabin, he sat down at the table, though it was neither the time nor the place for writing up his log.

Mrs. March was there alone, and, saying that he could not write at his desk, Medbury opened his book.

He wrote down the date, saw that he had written that of two days before, so scratched it out, and replaced it with the correct one, and slowly began to write "Dead calm" in bold letters up and down the column for winds.

"How long do you suppose this is going to last, Tom?" asked Mrs. March.

Medbury looked up and shook his head.

"There's no telling. Wind's an uncertain thing; nothing more so," he replied, and dipped his pen into the ink, squared his shoulders, and made the down stroke of the first letter of a new word with a care for details that seemed to indicate that he had left the subject of winds irrevocably behind, and then added, "except women."

Mrs. March had thought the sentence finished, and had taken up her knitting again. Now she merely nodded.

"It's true," she said impartially. "Most women wouldn't know their own minds if they were to come upon them in broad daylight. They are like men in that." She shot an amused glance toward the young man.

"You know them," he said bitterly, ignoring her last sentence, and secretly disappointed at such ready acquiescence, which indicated, he feared, a jocular state of mind.

"You mean I don't know them," corrected Mrs. March. "No one does. Do you suppose I know my own daughter's? No more than she does herself. I suppose you were thinking of her, weren't you?"

"It's all over," he answered, and laid down his pen, but continued to make motions across the page with his finger.

Mrs. March showed no surprise, but she ceased knitting, apparently out of respect for the young man's feelings.

"How do you know?" she asked.

"She just told me so," replied Medbury, glad that he could at last unburden himself. "She said she sometimes thought she had no heart. She told me that there were times when she had thought that she might care for me, but now she knew her own mind. So it's all over."

"Know her own mind! Fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Mrs. March, and proceeded to knit again. "I guess you've pestered her in some way, and so she said, 'Now I'll decide.' I suppose you've told her often enough that you couldn't live without her, and should always feel that way. It's perfectly natural for a girl to want to see if you can't."

"Then you think it may come out all right, after all?" he asked quickly.

She made a little murmur of dissent.

"I couldn't go so far as to say that. It may be just pretense, and it may be the plain truth, and it may be she doesn't know. You can't tell. You've got to wait and see."

"Well," he replied gloomily, "I guess it's all over." He was not going to be so weak, he told himself, as to begin to hope again."I've always thought it would come out right in the end," continued Mrs. March. "You know I don't feel like Cap'n March. I've always said, 'Let the young folks settle it for themselves'; and I've always liked you, Tom. But you've always been too humble, and she's been too certain of you. I kind o' thought, when you took things in your own hands and came this trip, it was the best thing you could have done. A girl likes a masterful man."

"She told me it was the worst thing," Medbury replied.

"Then I guess she was afraid of herself," said Mrs. March, with conviction. "She was afraid she'd have to give in."

Medbury shook his head doubtfully as he said:

"I don't know why she should be afraid, Mrs. March."

"Because a girl's love is a funny thing. There's fear in it, and pretense, and bashfulness, and coldness, and all the craziest things under the sun."

He hesitated a moment before speaking, and then said, with boyish shyness:

"She's known me so long, and known how I felt, sometimes it seems to me that maybe it's grown tiresome to her. A man like Drew, now, who hasn't known her long—if he cared—" He hesitated.

"I've thought that, too," said Mrs. March, gently.

The cabin door opened, and they heard Hetty's laugh near. It had the peculiarly resonant quality of a voice on deck in a calm, heard by one below. It also sounded happy. Medbury slipped away to his room.

The last words Mrs. March had spoken were in his mind, and he put his book away in bitterness of spirit. He heard Hetty descend into the cabin, speak to her mother, and then pass his door, going up the forward companionway. A sudden wild impulse to be aggressive seized him, and, leaving his room, he, too, ascended to the deck.

She was standing outside the cabin door, and she turned and smiled as he drew near.

"I thought it was your watch below," she said pleasantly.

He did not even look at her, but, hurrying to the booby-hatch, threw open the sliding hood and descended.

"Now I've done it," he said, as he seated himself upon a coiled hawser. "What a fool I can be when I really put my mind to it!"

But even with this repulse of her he was not satisfied; he wondered why he had not at least looked at her with scorn, and he thought of several bitter speeches that would have been better than silence.

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