"No, but there will be. Are ye alone?"
"Yes."
"Then shut that door behind ye and sit down. I've got something to say."
The grizzled, weather-beaten man who had made twenty voyages around Cape Horn, and who was known as a man of few words, and those always of command, closed the door upon them, drew down the shade on the sunny side of the room and faced her. He saw now that something of more than usual importance absorbed her.
"Now, what is it?" he asked. His manner had by this time regained something of the dictatorial tone he always showed those beneath him in authority.
"It's about Bart. You've got to send him away." She had not moved from her position in the middle of the room.
The captain changed color and his voice lost its sharpness.
"Bart! What's he done now?"
"He sneaks off with our Lucy every chance he gets. They were on the beach yesterday hidin' behind the House o' Refuge with their heads together. She had on Miss Jane's red cloak, and Ann Gossaway thought it was Miss Jane, and I let it go at that."
The captain looked at Martha incredulously for a moment, and then broke into a loud laugh as the absurdity of the whole thing burst upon him. Then dropping back a step, he stood leaning against the old-fashioned sideboard, his elbows behind him, his large frame thrust toward her.