Chapter 25 - Page 2

burst forth, "it has been left to you to stand higher in my eyes than any other woman God ever made."

He could not have controlled himself. And yet, when he had said this, his heart leaped for fear he might have wounded her or given her a false impression. But strange to say, it proved this time that he had no need for fear.

There was a moment's silence, and then she answered low.

"Thank yo'!"

They had gone some yards together, before he recovered himself sufficiently to remember what he had meant to say to her.

"I wanted to tell you," he said, "that I do not think any--enemy I have, can take me at any very great disadvantage. I am--I have prepared myself."

She shuddered.

"Yo' carry--summat?"

"Don't misunderstand me," he said quickly. "I shall not use any weapon rashly. It is to be employed more as a means of warning and alarm than anything else. Rigganites do not like firearms, and they are not used to them. I only tell you this, because I cannot bear that you should expose yourself unnecessarily."

There was that in his manner which moved her as his light touch had done that first night of their meeting, when he had bound up her wounded temple with his handkerchief. It was that her womanhood--her hardly used womanhood, of which she had herself thought with such pathetic scorn--was always before him, and was even a stronger power with him than her marvellous beauty.

She remembered the fresh bruise upon her brow, and felt its throb with less of shame, because she bore it for his sake.

"Promise me one thing," he went on. "And do not think me ungracious in asking it of you--promise me that you will not come out again through any fear of danger for me, unless it is a greater one than threatens me now and one I am unprepared to meet."

"I conna," she answered firmly. "I conna promise yo'. Yo' mun let me do as I ha' done fur th' sake o' my own peace."

She made no further explanation, and he could not persuade her to alter her determination. In fact, he was led to see at last, that there was more behind than she had the will or power to reveal to him; something in her reticence silenced him.

"Yo' dunnot know what I do," she said before they parted. "An' happen yo' would na quoite understand it if yo' did. I dunnot do things lightly,--I ha' no reason to,--an' I ha' set my moind on seein' that th' harm as has been brewin' fur long enow, shanna reach wheer it's aimed. I mun ha' my way. Dunnot ask me to gi'e it up. Let me do as I ha' been doin' fur th' sake o' mysen, if fur no one else."

The truth which he could not reach, and would not have reached if he had talked to her till doomsday, was that she was right in saying that she could not give it up. This woman had