reading the words '_Honi
soit qui mal y pense_' to-day written on the wall behind you. . . .
Why, damn me, sir, for aught you or any of them can tell, I intend to
marry this girl! Why not? Go and tell them. Could there (you'll say)
be a fairer betrothal? The reputable plight their troth with a single
ring around the woman's finger; but here are four rings around the four
ankles, and the bar locked. With your leave, which is the more
symbolical?"

"You are a reprobate man, Captain Vyell," was the answer, "and I have no
relish for your talk. I will only say this, When her punishment is
done, my cart shall be ready for her; and you, if you would vindicate an
action which--for I'll give you that credit--sprang from a generous
impulse, will go your ways and let this child live down her
humiliation."

Mr. Trask turned and went his way up the alley, across which the sun
made level rays of flame. The Collector sat in thought.

He turned his head, surprised by the sound of a sob. A small child had
drawn near--a toddle of four, trailing her wooden doll with its head in
the dust--and stood a few paces in front of Ruth Josselin, round-eyed,
finger at mouth.

"Steady, my girl. . . . Steady!"

At the murmured warning she braced her body stiffly, and no second sob
came. But the tears ran--the first in all her long agony--and small
shivers, as light winds play on aspen, chased one another down her
throat. Almost you could guess them passing down her flesh beneath the
sackcloth, rippling over its torn and purple ridges.

He did not check her weeping. The child--small, innocent cause of it--
stood round-eyed, wondering. "She has been naughty. What has she done,
to be so naughty?"

Over the maples the town clock slowly told the hour.

They were free. The Collector tossed away the half-smoked
tobacco-leaf--his twelfth--drew a long breath, and emitted it with a gay
laugh of relief. At the same moment he saw Mr. Trask's bullock-cart
approaching down the dappled avenue.

Chapter XII.

THE HUT BY THE BEACH.

"And you'll never hold up your head again! No more will any of us.
The disgrace of it! the disgrace of it!"

Ruth stood in the middle of the wretched room, with her hands hanging
slack and her eyes bent wearily upon her mother, who had collapsed upon
a block of sawn timber, and sat there, with sack apron cast over her
head, rocking her body.

"Hush, ye fool!" said old Josselin, and spat out of wi