"Why couldn't you?"
"Because—no, I won't, Bob! I'm your mother. I must make things easier for you, and not harder, and so—"
"It will make things easiest for me to know the truth. So go on! Out with it! Tell me just what he said."
She wrung her hands beneath the cloak.
"He said it—it couldn't be love—with a girl whom—whom anyone could—"
He sprang from the rail, holding up his hand.
"Wait a minute, mother! Jennie's my wife. I'm her husband. I believe in her."
With her speed in trimming her sails to the wind, Junia caught the direction.
"I don't want you not to believe in her, Bob. I didn't want to say any of the things that—that you've been dragging out of me. You know that."
"Yes, I know that, old lady, and I'm grateful. I had to drag them out and know the worst that could be said, so as to contradict it in—in my heart."