eart?"

She sat down on the old kitchen settle, and I could not help noticing
how beautifully her dark dress fitted her graceful form. At the same
time I knew not what to say. I had come because my heart hungered for
her, and because love knows no laws. Yet no words came to me, except to
say, "Naomi Penryn, I love you more than life," and those I dared not
utter, so much was I afraid of her as she sat there.

"Are you in great danger?" she asked. "I have breathed no word about
that cave, no word to any one. What did it mean?"

This gave me an opening, and then I rapidly told her what I have written
in these pages.

"And will they try and find you?" she asked when I had told my story.

"They will hunt me like dogs hunt a fox!" I replied, "so I must find my
way to Falmouth, and try and get to sea."

Her face was full of sympathy, and my heart rejoiced because she did not
seem to think it strange that I should come to her.

"And will you have to go soon?"

"I must go now," I replied, and then my sorrow and despair, at the
thought, dragged my confession from my tongue.

"But before I go," I said, "I must tell you that I love you, Naomi
Penryn. It is madness, I know; but I loved you when I was in the pillory
at Falmouth, and I have loved you ever since, and my love has been
growing stronger each day. That is why I have come here, to-night. My
heart is hungry for you, and my eyes have been aching for a sight of
your face, and I felt I could not go away without telling you, even
though I shall never see you again."

Her face seemed to grow paler than ever as I spoke, but her eyes grew
soft.

"I know I am wrong, I ought not to have come in this way," I went on,
for my tongue was unloosed now, "but I could not help it; and I am glad
I have come, for your eyes will nerve me, and the thought that you do
not scorn me will be a help to me in the unknown paths which I have to
tread. For you do not scorn me, do you?"

"Scorn you?" she asked. "Why should I scorn you?"

And then a great hope came into my heart, greater than I had ever dared
to dream of before, the hope that she might care for me! Wild I know it
was, but my own love filled me with the hope. If I loved her, might she
not, even although I were unworthy, love me? Yet I dared not ask her if
it was so; only I longed with a longing which cannot be uttered that she
should tell me, by word or look.

"And must you go soon, go now to Falmouth?" she said like one d