Miss Port did not get angry.  With wonderful self-repression she controlled her feelings.  She knew that if she lost that control there would be an end to everything.  She grew pale, but she spoke more gently than before.  “You know”—­she was about to say “John,” but she thought she would better not—­“that what I say about determination and all that, I simply say because you do not come to meet me half-way, as I would have you do.  All I want is to get you to acknowledge my rights, to defend me from ridicule.  You know that I am now alone in the world, and have no one to look to but you—­to whom I always expected to look when father died—­and if you should carry out your cruel words, and should turn from me as if I was a stranger and a nobody, after all these years of visitin’ and attention from you, which everybody knows about, and has talked about, I could never expect anybody else—­you bein’ gone—­to step forward—­”

At this the face of the captain cleared, and as he gazed upon the unpleasant face and figure of this weather-worn spinster, the idea that any one with matrimonial intentions should “step forward,” as she put it, struck him as being so extremely ludicrous that he burst out laughing.

Then leaped into fire every nervelet of Miss Maria Port.  “Laugh at me, do you?” cried she.  “I’ll give you something to laugh at!  And if you ’re going to stand up for that thing you have in your house, that murderess—­”

She said no more.  The captain stepped up to her with a smothered curse so that she moved back, frightened.  But he did nothing.  He was too enraged to speak.  She was a woman, and he could not strike her to the ground.  Before her sallow venom he was helpless.  He was a man and she was a woman, and he could do nothing at all.  He was too angry to stay there another second, and, without a word, he left her, walking with great strides toward the town.

Miss Maria Port stood looking after him, panting a little, for her excitement had been great.  Then, with a yellow light in her eyes, she hurried toward her vehicle, which had stopped.

As Captain Asher strode into town he asked himself over and over again what should he do?  How should he punish this wildcat—­this ruthless creature, who spat venom at the one he loved best in the world, and who threatened him with her wicked claws?  In his mind he looked from side to side for help; some one must fight his battle for him; he could not fight a woman.  He had not reached town when he thought of Mrs. Faulkner, the wife of the Methodist minister.  He knew her; she and her husband had been among the friends who had come out to see him; and she was a woman.  He would go directly to her, and ask her advice.

The captain was not shown into the parlor of the parsonage, but into the minister’s study, that gentleman being away.  He heard a great sound of talking as he passed the parlor door, and it was not long before Mrs. Faulkner came in.  He hesitated as she greeted him.