When the girl came out and saw the two men, and saw their steady faces, and the somber grief in Black Pawl’s eyes, she went to the Captain’s side. “Cap’n Pawl,” she said to him under her breath, “you must not be unhappy. Please. You are a good man.... Kiss me.”
He bent with a swift rush of feeling and kissed her forehead; and she smiled up at him, then turned and fled to the deck where Dan waited for her.
Black Pawl faced the missionary. He turned to the table. “Father,” he said, “sit down.”
The missionary obeyed. He took the chair the girl had occupied. Black Pawl sat across the table; and after a minute, he began. “I’ve a thing to say that is hard saying,” he told the old man. “But—it has got to be told. Listen, Father.”
And so, straightforwardly, he told his story. He did not excuse himself; he did not palliate that which he had meant to do. He painted it in its ugliest colors, painted himself as black as the pit. He began with the moment when he and Ruth were left alone upon the schooner; he told how each step had come to pass. And he came at last to the moment when his rough hand had torn her waist, and he saw the locket at her throat. There was no heat in the man, no hysteria. He told it baldly; and at the last said:
“So I knew she was my daughter—my daughter.”
He was still, with that word. He seemed to wait upon the missionary; but the old man did not speak. Black Pawl watched him; and as he watched, into the Captain’s eyes stole something of that old, hard mockery of all the world. “So, Father!” he exclaimed harshly. “Is that not the unforgivable sin?”
The missionary looked up at him in mild surprise. “It seemed to me that Ruth had forgiven you,” he suggested.
Black Pawl said hoarsely: “Oh, aye! But—there’s none other like her in the world.”
“If she has forgiven, there is no one else to blame you,” said the missionary.