So we sped on
through the dark, these two maids and I, unseeing and unseen, speaking
little by reason of our haste.

Presently the rain ceased, the wind abated its rage and the thunder
pealed faint with distance, while ever and anon the gloom gave place to
a vague light, where, beyond the flying cloud-wrack, a faint moon
peeped.

Guided by that slender hand, so soft and yet instinct with warm and
vigorous life, I stumbled on through leafy ways, traversed a little
wood, on and ever on until, the trees thinning, showed beyond a glimmer
of the great high road. Here I stayed.

"Madam," says I, making some ado over the unfamiliar word. "You should
be safe now--and, as I do think, your road lieth yonder."

"Pembury is but a mile hence," says she, "and there we may get horses.
Come, at least this night you shall find comfort and shelter."

"No," says I. "No--I am a thing of the roads, and well enough in hedge
or rick!" and I would have turned but her hand upon my sleeve
restrained me.

"Sir," says she, "be you what you will, you are a man! Who you are I
know and care not--but you have this night wrought that I shall
nevermore forget and now I--we--would fain express our gratitude--"

"Indeed and indeed!" said the maid Marjorie, speaking for the first
time.

"I want no gratitude!" says I, mighty gruff.

"Yet shall it follow thee, for the passion of gratitude is strong and
may not be denied--even by beggar so proud and arrogant!" And now,
hearkening to this voice, so deep and soft and strangely sweet, I knew
not if she laughed at me or no; but even as I debated this within
myself, she lifted my hand, the hand that grasped the knife, and I felt
the close, firm pressure of two warm, soft lips; then she had freed me
and I fell back a step, striving for speech yet finding none.

"God love me!" quoth I at last. "Why must you--do so!"

"And wherefore not?" she questioned proudly.

"'Tis the hand of a vagrant, an outcast, a poor creeper o' ditches!"
says I.

"But a man's hand!" she answered.

"'Tis at hand that hath slain once this night and shall slay again ere
many hours be sped." Now here I heard her sigh as one that is troubled.

"And yet," says she gently, "'tis no murderer's hand and you that are
vagrant and outcast are no rogue."

"How judge ye this, having never seen me?" I questioned.

"In that I am a woman. For God hath armed our weakness with a gift of
knowledge whereby we may oft-times know tru