At this juncture Mrs. Hilliard entered the library, and after a little further talk the two girls announced themselves as being quite ready to retire.
"Be ready at seven o'clock," Judge Hilliard reminded them, as he bade his guests good night. "We shall reach Captain Mike's shanty boat before he has time to proceed with the marriage. They won't expect you at your houseboat until after breakfast, and I hope to have three girls to deliver aboard, instead of two."
Phyllis and Madge dropped asleep that night the instant their heads touched their pillows. They had asked to share the same room, and as they had sleepily undressed, they congratulated each other on the fact that Mike Muldoon's cowardly act had resulted in nothing but good to them. It looked as though it might even prove a boomerang to him.
By seven o'clock the next morning the girls had breakfasted and said good-bye to Mrs. Hilliard, after promising to visit her at some future time.
"Judge Hilliard," announced Madge, as the yacht "Greyhound" steamed out from the pier, "we forgot to tell you last night that we think Mollie is old enough to come away from her father if she wishes. She doesn't know how old she is. That is one of the queer things about Mollie. She seems quite sensible until you ask her to recall something, and then she becomes confused. Still, I am sure she is several years older than either Phil or I."
The shanty boat colony on the east side of Fisherman's Island had also risen early on this warm morning in July. Bill crossed over to the mainland in his sailboat to bring a Justice of the Peace back with him to marry him to Mollie. Captain Mike was determined to have his way with his daughter. Once she was married to Bill, her new friends would find it difficult to get her away from him.
Since Mollie's return to the shanty boat she had made no further outcry. She did not seem to know what was going on. The vacant, hopeless look had come over her face. The fright and ill treatment of the day before had completely subdued her. She seemed to have forgotten everything.
All night long she had lain awake in her miserable berth in the dirty shanty boat. She lay still, with her eyes closed, until the breathing of her family told her they were fast asleep. Then she crept out on the deck of the boat. She sat for hours without moving, her wonderful blue eyes, with the empty look in them, staring out over the silent waters. She was waiting, wistful and patient, for something to come to save her. When the dawn broke, and a rosy light bathed the bay and the sky, she rose, went quietly into the cabin and lay down in her berth again. She stayed there while the family ate their breakfast. She made no resistance when her step-mother came toward her, grinning maliciously, and bearing a coarse white cotton dress, which she called "Moll's wedding gown."
Mollie let the woman put the dress on her. She even combed her own sun-colored hair; and, for the first time in her life, she knotted it on her head, instead of letting it stream in ragged, unkempt ends over her shoulders. A loose lock of hair over Mollie's low forehead covered the ugly scar that was her one disfigurement. She was so startlingly lovely that her stupid step-mother stared at her in a kind of bewildered amazement. Mollie was pale and worn, and painfully thin, yet nothing could spoil the wonderful color of her hair and eyes, nor take away the peculiar grace of her figure. Her expression was dull and listless. Even so Mollie looked like a lily transplanted to some field of dank weeds, but growing tall and sweet amid their ugliness.
Mike looked at his daughter curiously when her step-mother dragged her out before him. Brutal as he was, a change passed over his face. He glanced over the water to see if Bill's boat were approaching. "I ain't never understood how things has turned out," he muttered to himself. "If Mollie wasn't foolish, I wouldn't let Bill have her. She is a pretty thing, and she looks like a lady. That's what makes it so all-fired queer."