Oily Dave jerked out this last statement with a swift change of tone from mournful regret to cheerful business complacency, and Miles served him in silence, too saddened by the heavy tidings from the sea to break into resentful angry speech with this man, who appeared devoid of either heart or feeling.  Then the heavy boots squelched out again, going towards the river bank, where the waiting boat was tied to the mooring post.  A moment of waiting to make sure he did not return, and then Katherine, pale now as a ghost, glided out from the shadow of the rugs.

“Miles, dear, can you do without me for the rest of the day if need be?  I am going down river to poor Mrs. Jenkin,” she said, her voice steady though strained.

“I can manage; but look at the rain!” he exclaimed, swinging his hand towards the open door.

“All the more reason why I should go to her, poor little woman,” Katherine answered, then passed with a quick step into the house, in search of garments to keep out the weather.

Mrs. Burton was preparing the early dinner, and Katherine told her of the news Oily Dave had brought, speaking in quiet, mournful tones which yet lacked any note of personal loss.  Not even to herself would she admit the sorrow at this time, or it would have broken her down completely.  Her instinct of going to comfort someone else was the outcome of the strife she was having not to collapse in a miserable, selfish breakdown.

Mrs. Burton turned white and shivered.  Just so had her heavy news come to her, and in her sympathy for Mrs. Jenkin her own wounds bled afresh.  But Katherine could not stay to comfort her, the other poor woman needed it so much more.

“Nellie, I am going down to Seal Cove, and if Mrs. Jenkin needs me I shall stay until the morning,” she said hurriedly.

“That is good of you, dear,” sobbed the elder sister, and would have said something more, only Katherine went out of the room so hastily that there was no chance.

Poor Katherine had fled so precipitately through fear that Nellie should say some word about Jervis, with possibly some commiseration for Mary, and that just now would be a thing too hard to bear.  Wrapping herself from neck to heels in a mackintosh coat, with a cap of the same, Katherine got into her boat and pulled down river through the driving rain.  She rowed as fast as she could, not so much from haste to be at the end of her journey as from a desire to have no time to think.

Tying her boat up at the foot of the path leading to Mrs. Jenkin’s house, she climbed to the house door, slipping at every step.  A moment she paused before knocking, expecting to hear sobs and wailing from the inside; but instead there came a burst of childish laughter and a great stamping of little feet, and then she heard Mrs. Jenkin singing in a cheerful, if not very musical, voice:  “My love is a soldier dressed in red”.

Katherine stood appalled.  Was it possible that Oily Dave had not told this poor woman of the trouble which had come to her?  In that case she would have to break the heavy news herself, and at the thought she turned coward, and would gladly have slipped away again by the way she had come.