"Yes."
"By an absolute deadlock," she murmured on. "My father sees it. He knows it's one yet and must always be one."
"No, a lock but not a deadlock. It's a lock to which your brothers do not hold the key."
The pounding in her breast, which had grown better, grew worse again. "Who holds it?"
"Your father. I have just told him so. At no time would I have hesitated to ask for you if the key had been with your brothers. I would have got a settlement from them, sink or swim, alive or dead. I believe in lover's rights, Ramsey, and I'll have a lover's rights at any risk or cost that falls only on me. Those old threats—yes, I know how fiercely they are still meant—and they have always had their weight; but they've never of themselves weighed enough to stop me. I've held off and endured, waiting not for a change of heart in your brothers, but for an hour counselled, Ramsey, by my father on his dying bed."
"What hour? Hour of strongest right? strongest reason?"
"Not at all. The hour I've waited for was the one which would best enable me to meet your father on equal terms as measured by his own standards."
"Oh, I see. I believe I see."
"Yes, the hour when I should be not owner merely, but captain too, of the finest boat——"
"Dat eveh float'—" she tenderly put in.