She knew she had solved the problem the instant the answer came. Elsa had been to Boston to school, and the fact was very evident. She sat and stared at the black letters, flexing the packet filled with bills.
"Why should Elsa Mallaby be sending money to Code Schofield?"
Everybody in Freekirk Head knew that Code Schofield went up to Elsa Mallaby's to dinner occasionally. So did other people in the village, but not so often as he. There had been a little gossip concerning the two of them, but, while Code was an excellent enough fellow, it was hardly probable that a rich widow like Elsa would throw herself away on a poor _fisherman_. They _forgot_ that she had done so the first time she married, and that she had the sea in her blood.
These shreds of gossip returned to Nellie now with accrued interest, and she began to believe in the theory of fire being behind smoke.
She also remembered the night of the mass-meeting in Odd Fellows Hall when Code had made his suggestion of going to the Banks. There had flashed between Elsa's velvet-dark eyes and Code's blue ones a message of intimacy of which the town knew nothing. Every one saw the look, and nearly every one talked about it, but they did not know that only a couple of nights before Elsa had been the one to put Code on guard against his enemies, and that he was more than grateful.
"I'd just like to know what's in that letter so as to tease him the next time we meet," she said gaily to herself. She was now out of all mood for writing her letter home, and, stuffing the contents of the drawer back into place, she returned the latter to the table and went on deck.
The sea was running higher. The new topmast was up, and within half an hour the _Rosan_ heeled to the wind and plowed her way northward after the remainder of the fleet.
At the forecastle head of the _Rosan_ stood a youth tolling the ship's bell. The windlass grunted and whined as the schooner came up on her hawser with a thump, and overhead a useless jib slatted and rattled.
The youth could scarcely see aft of the foremast because of the thickness of the weather, but he could hear what was going on. There was a thump, a slimy slapping of wet fish, and a voice counting monotonously as its owner forked his forenoon's catch into the pen amidships.
