out uttering a word. In the same instant
he saw the livid bruise, half hidden under her hair--and then he saw a
big bundle behind her, partly screened by a dwarfed banksian. After that
his eyes went back to the bruise.

"Jed Hawkins didn't do it," said Nada, knowing what was in his mind. "It
was Jed's woman. And you can't kill her!" she added a little defiantly.

Jolly Roger caught the choking throb in her throat, and he knew she was
lying. But Nada thrust Peter from her lap, and stood up, and she seemed
taller and more like a woman than ever before in her life as she faced
Jolly Roger there in the tiny open, with violets and buttercups and red
strawberries in the soft grass under their feet. And behind them, and
very near, a rival to the warbler in the meadow began singing. But Nada
did not hear. The color had rushed hot into her cheeks at first, but now
it was fading out as swiftly, and her hands trembled, clasped in front
of her. But the blue in her eyes was as steady as the blue in the sky as
she looked at Jolly Roger.

"I'm not going back to Jed Hawkins' any more, Mister Roger," she said.

A soft breath of wind lifted the tress of hair from her forehead,
revealing more clearly the mark of Jed Hawkins' brutality, and Nada saw
gathering in Jolly Roger's eyes that cold, steely glitter which always
frightened her when it came. His hands clenched, and when she reached
out and touched his arm the flesh of it was as hard as white birch. Even
in her fear there was glory in the thought that at a word from her he
would kill the man who had struck her. Her fingers crept up his arm,
timidly, and the blue in her eyes darkened, and there was a pleading
tremble in the curve of her lips as she looked straight at him.

"I'm not going back," she repeated.

Jolly Roger, looking beyond her, saw the significance of the bundle.
His eyes met her steady gaze again, and his heart seemed to swell in his
chest, and choke him. He tried to let his tense muscles relax. He tried
to smile. He struggled to bring up the courage which would make possible
the confession he had to make. And Peter, sitting on his haunches in a
patch of violets, watched them both, wondering what was going to happen
between these two.

"Where are you going?" Jolly Roger asked.

Nada's fingers had crept almost to his shoulder. They were twisting at
his flannel shirt nervously, but not for the tenth part of a second did
she drop her eyes, and that strange, wonderfu