“Why, you know, Cap’n Joe,” Caleb interposed quickly, eager to defend a brother keeper, a pained and surprised expression over-spreading his face. “Poor Charles Edwards had been out o’ his head for a week.”
“That’s right, Caleb; that’s what I heard, an’ that’s true, an’ the dead men and the owners hadn’t nobody to blame, an’ didn’t. Now I’ll ask ye the other question: When Betty, after livin’ every day of her life as straight as a marlin spike, run away an’ lef’ ye a week ago, an’ broke up yer home, who’s to blame,—Betty, or the hoodoo that’s put ’er out’er her mind ever since the Screamer blowed up?”
Caleb settled back in his chair and rested his chin on his hand, his big fluffy beard hiding his wrist and shirt-cuff. For a long time he did not answer. The captain sat, with his hands on his knees, looking searchingly into Caleb’s face, watching every expression that crossed it.
“Cap’n Joe,” said the diver in his calm, low voice, “I hearn ye talk, an’ I know ye well 'nough to know that ye believe every word ye say, an’ I don’t know but it’s all true. I ain’t had much ’sperience o’ women folks, only two. But I don’t think ye git this right. It ain’t for myself that I’m thinkin’. I kin git along alone, an’ do my own cookin’ an’ washin’ same as I allus used to. It’s Betty I’m thinkin’ of. She’s tried me more’n a year, an’ done her best, an’ give it up. She wouldn’t ’a’ been 'hoodooed,’ as ye call it, by Bill Lacey if her own heart warn’t ready for it ’fore he began. It’s agin natur’ for a gal as young’s Betty to be happy with a man ’s old’s me. She can’t do it, no matter how hard she tries. I didn’t know it when I asked her, but I see it now.”
“But she knows better now, Caleb; she ain’t a-goin’ to cut up no more capers.” There was a yearning, an almost pitiful tone in the captain’s voice. His face was close to Caleb’s.
“Ye think so, an’ maybe she won’t; but there’s one thing yer don’t seem to see, Cap’n Joe: she can’t git out’er love with me an’ inter love with Billy an’ back agin to me in a week.”
These last words came slowly, as if they had been dragged up out of the very depths of his heart.
“She never was out’er love with ye, Caleb, nor in with Lacey. Don’t I tell ye?” he cried impatiently, too absorbed in Betty’s welfare to note the seriousness of Caleb’s tone.
“Yes,” said Caleb. His voice had fallen almost to a whisper. “I know ye think so, but th’ bes’ thing now for the little gal is to give ’er ’er freedom, an’ let ’er go ’er way. She shan’t suffer as long’s I’ve got a dollar, but I won’t have ’er come home. It’ll only break her heart then as well’s mine. Now—now—it’s only me—that is”—Caleb’s head sank to the table until his face lay on his folded arms.
Captain Joe rose from his chair, bent down and laid his hand softly on the diver’s shoulder. When he spoke his voice had the pleading tones of a girl.