The group in the lawyer's office did not break up for another hour. There were many matters for discussion, matters upon which Bradley and Barnes wished the advice of the others. Mike and Mrs. Tidditt were sent home early, and departed, volubly, though tearfully rejoicing. The minister and Captain Noah stayed on to answer questions concerning the church and the lodge, the former's pressing needs and the new building which the latter had hoped for and which was now a certainty. Sears and Elizabeth remained longest. Bradley whispered to the captain that he wished them to do so.
When they were alone with him, and with Barnes of course, he took from his pocket two sealed letters.
"The judge gave me these along with the will," he said. "That was about three weeks before he died. I don't know what is in them and he gave me to understand that I wasn't supposed to know. They are for you two and no one else, so he said. You are to read yours when you are alone, Cap'n Kendrick, and Elizabeth is to read hers when she is by herself. And he particularly asked me to tell you both not to make your decision too quickly. Think it over, he said."
He handed Sears an envelope addressed in Judge Knowles' hand-writing, and to Elizabeth another bearing her name.
"There!" he exclaimed, with a sigh of relief. "That is done. Ever since the old judge left us I have been feeling as if he were standing at my elbow and nudging me not to forget. He had a will of his own, Judge Knowles had, and I don't mean the will we have just read, either. But, take him by and large, as you sailors say, Cap'n, I honestly believe he was the biggest and squarest man this county has seen for years. Some of us are going to be surer of that fact every day that passes."
It was after four when Elizabeth and Sears climbed aboard the buggy and the captain, tugging heavily on what he termed the port rein, coaxed the unwilling Foam Flake into the channel—or the road. Heavy clouds had risen in the west since their arrival in Orham, the sky was covered with them, and it was already beginning to grow dark. When they turned from the main road into the wood road leading across the Cape there were lighted lamps in the kitchens of the scattered houses on the outskirts of the town.
"Is it going to rain, do you think?" asked Elizabeth, peering at the troubled brown masses above the tree tops.
Sears shook his head. "Hardly think so," he replied. "Looks more like wind to me. Pretty heavy squall, I shouldn't wonder, and maybe rain to-morrow. Come, come; get under way, Old Hundred," addressing the meandering Foam Flake. "If you don't travel faster than this in fair weather and a smooth sea, what will you do when we have to reef? Well," with a chuckle, "even if it comes on a livin' gale the old horse won't blow off the course. Judah feeds him too well. Nothin' short of a typhoon could heel him down."
The prophesied gale held off, but the darkness shut in rapidly. In the long stretches of thick woods through which they were passing it was soon hard to see clearly. Not that that made any difference. Sears knew the Orham road pretty well and the placid Foam Flake seemed to know it absolutely. His ancient hoofs plodded up and down in the worn "horse path" between the grass-grown and sometimes bush-grown ridges which separated it from the deep ruts on either side. Sometimes those ruts were so deep that the tops of the blueberry bushes and weeds on those ridges scratched the bottom of the buggy.
Beside his orders to the horse the captain had said very little since their departure. He had been thinking, though, thinking hard. It was just beginning to dawn upon him, the question as to what this good fortune which had befallen the girl beside him might mean, what effect it might have upon her, upon her future—and upon her relations with him, Sears Kendrick.