ht. Whoever it was came feeling
a way down the dark aisle.

Then hot tears fell upon my hands. In the gloom there paused a
childlike figure.

"Rebecca!"

She panted out a wordless cry. Then she came closer and laid a hand on
my arm. She was struggling to subdue sobs. The question came in a
shivering breath.

"Is Hortense--so dear?"

"So dear, Rebecca."

"She must be wondrous happy, Ramsay." A tumult of effort. "If I could
only take her place----"

"Take her place, Rebecca?"

"My father hath the key--if--if--if I took her place, she might go
free."

"Take her place, child! What folly is this--dear, kind Rebecca? Would
't be any better to send you to the rope than Hortense? No--no--dear
child!"

At that her agitation abated, and she puzzled as if to say more.

"Dear Rebecca," said I, comforting her as I would a sister, "dear
child, run home. Forget not little Hortense in thy prayers."

May the angel of forgiveness spread a broader mantle across our
blunders than our sins, but could I have said worse?

"I have cooked dainties with my own hands. I have sent her cakes every
day," sobbed Rebecca.

"Go home now, Rebecca," I begged.

But she stood silent.

"Rebecca--what is it?"

"You have not been to see me for a year, Ramsay."

I could scarce believe my ears.

"My father is away to-night. Will you not come?"

"But, Rebecca----"

"I have never asked a thing of you before."

"But, Rebecca----"

"Will you come for Hortense's sake?" she interrupted, with a little
sharp, hard, falsetto note in her baby voice.

"Rebecca," I demanded, "what do you mean?"

But she snapped back like the peevish child that she was: "An you come
not when I ask you, you may stay!" And she had gone.

What was she trying to say with her dark hints and overnice scruples of
a Puritan conscience? And was not that Jack Battle greeting her
outside in the dark?

I tore after Rebecca at such speed that I had cannoned into open arms
before I saw a hulking form across the way.

"Fall-back--fall-edge!" roared Jack, closing his arms about me. "'Tis
Ramsay himself, with a sword like a butcher's cleaver and a wit like a
broadaxe!"

"Have you not heard, Jack?"

"Heard! Ship ahoy!" cried Jack. "Split me to the chin like a cod!
Stood I not abaft of you all day long, packed like a herring in a
pickle! 'Twas a pretty kettle of fish in your Noah's ark to-day! 'Tis
all along o' goodness gone stale from too much sa