vation he was constrained to swear faith
under dictation; also the order of his going was ruled minutely, with
warning that the lifting of a hand unallowed would be instantly fatal.
'Be doing--be doing quickly,' he said, and the bolt was drawn.

Christian turned to stay Rhoda, who came following, and the four men,
with fine consideration, passed out first, letting the door swing to on
the unhappy pair. Their eyes met, poor souls, with miserable
consciousness that a barrier of reserve thwarted solace.

'Keep heart, dear,' he said; and bravely tearless she echoed him.

'But, oh!' she said, 'be patient, and not rash, for the sake of those who
love you.'

'O Rhoda, Rhoda! you do not know. I have a work this night. I think--I
know it was meant for me. By Heaven, I think. My own sins have risen up
against me now. They thwart. Hell itself striving against me has
advantage by them. There must be some way. But I cannot see it. There
must be! Oh! I cannot be condemned through turning back on an amended
hope. So Heaven-sent I blessed it. No way--no way!'

Muttering, he reached over to the rowan and absently fingered it, while
Rhoda urged on him what she knew of reason. He turned on her a musing
look.

'Rhoda, will you help me?'

'Oh, tell me to: never ask.'

'Take the rowan, and finish what I was about.'

She broke down at last, and turned away in such a passion of sobbing as
owned desertion of hope.

'Rhoda! You desert me, Rhoda!' in so broken a voice he said, that against
all sense she cried: 'But I will! Yes, yes; trust me, I will!' and could
not after retract when she saw his face.

'I am not mad,' he said; 'look at me: I am not.' And with that she knew
not how to reconcile evidence.

'Be speedy against my return.'

'Is it possible? How?' she whispered.

'As God wills, I cannot know; but some way will show, must show.'

Again she entreated against temerity, and for answer he taught her of a
lonely spot, asking her to carry the threaded rowan there, and to wait
his coming. 'If I do not come,' he said, 'I shall be----'

'Not dead!' she breathed.

'Oh, damned and dead,' he said.

'It cannot be. No. Yet, O Christian, should any harm befall you, avenged
you shall be. Yes. No law can serve us here efficient against the
tyranny of the League; but if in all the land high places of justice be,
there will I go, and there denounce the practice of such outrage and
wrong. Those four, they shall not escape from accoun