dressing-gown, a candle in her hand, her face crimson,
and oh! so young, with its short, crisp hair and round cheeks. The old
man--like a giant in front of her--raised his hands, and laid them on
her shoulders.

"What's this? You--you've had a man in your room?"

Her eyes did not drop.

"Yes," she said. Dan gave a groan.

"Who?"

"Zachary Pearse," she answered in a voice like a bell.

He gave her one awful shake, dropped his hands, then raised them as
though to strike her. She looked him in the eyes; his hands dropped, and
he too groaned. As far as I could see, her face never moved.

"I'm married to him," she said, "d' you hear? Married to him. Go out of
my room!" She dropped the candle on the floor at his feet, and slammed
the door in his face. The old man stood for a minute as though stunned,
then groped his way downstairs.

"Dan," I said, "is it true?"

"Ah!" he answered, "it's true; didn't you hear her?"

I was glad I couldn't see his face.

"That ends it," he said at last; "there's the old man to think of."

"What will he do?"

"Go to the fellow this very night." He seemed to have no doubt. Trust
one man of action to know another.

I muttered something about being an outsider--wondered if there was
anything I could do to help.

"Well," he said slowly, "I don't know that I'm anything but an outsider
now; but I'll go along with him, if he'll have me."

He went downstairs. A few minutes later they rode out from the
straw-yard. I watched them past the line of hayricks, into the blacker
shadows of the pines, then the tramp of hoofs began to fail in the
darkness, and at last died away.

I've been sitting here in my bedroom writing to you ever since, till my
candle's almost gone. I keep thinking what the end of it is to be; and
reproaching myself for doing nothing. And yet, what could I have done?
I'm sorry for her--sorrier than I can say. The night is so quiet--I
haven't heard a sound; is she asleep, awake, crying, triumphant?

It's four o'clock; I've been asleep.

They're back. Dan is lying on my bed. I'll try and tell you his story as
near as I can, in his own words.

"We rode," he said, "round the upper way, keeping out of the lanes,
and got to Kingswear by half-past eleven. The horse-ferry had stopped
running, and we had a job to find any one to put us over. We hired the
fellow to wait for us, and took a carriage at the 'Castle.' Before we
got to Black Mill it was nearly one, pitch-dark. Wit