Sears uneasily shifted again. This conversation was following much too closely his own line of reasoning.
"Five thousand isn't any great fortune," he observed, "to a man like Phillips."
The little woman nodded. "It's five thousand dollars to a man just like Phillips—now," she said, significantly. "And, more'n that, Cordelia's matron at the Harbor. The Fair Harbor ain't a Eyetalian palace maybe, but it's a nice, comf'table place where the matron's husband might live easy and not pay board.... That's my guess. Other folks can have theirs and welcome."
"But——"
"There ain't no buts about it, Cap'n Kendrick. You know it's so. Eg Phillips is goin' to marry Cordelia Berry. My name ain't Elijah nor Jeremiah—no, nor Deuteronomy nuther—but I can prophesy that much."
She rose with a triumphant bounce, turned to the open door behind her, and saw Elizabeth Berry standing there. Sears Kendrick saw her at the same time.
There are periods in the life of each individual when it seems as if Fate was holding a hammer above that individual's head and, at intervals, as the head ventures to lift itself, knocking it down again. Each successive tap seems a bit harder, and the victim, during the interval of its falling, wonders if it is to be the final and finishing thump.
Sears did not wonder this time, he knew. His thought, as he saw her there, saw the expression upon her face and realized what she must have heard, was: "Here it is! This is the end."
Yet he was the first of the two to speak. Elizabeth, white and rigid, said nothing, and even Mrs. Tidditt's talking machinery seemed to be temporarily thrown out of gear. So the captain made the attempt, a feeble one.
"Why, Elizabeth," he faltered, "is that you?... Come in, won't you?"