a failing man
at all, but all o' fire. 'Sore disfigured-on a great river-coming this
way.'

"Ah, Luke, if you were a woman, and had the feeling for me you think you
have, you would pity me, and find him for me. Take a thought! The father
of my child!"

"Alack, I would if I knew how," said Luke, "but how can I?"

"Nay, of course you cannot. I am mad to think it. But oh, if any one
really cared for me, they would; that is all I know."

Luke reflected in silence for some time.

"The old folk all say dying men can see more than living wights. Let me
think: for my mind cannot gallop like thine. On a great river Well, the
Maas is a great river." He pondered on.

"Coming this way? Then if it 'twas the Maas, he would have been here
by this time, so 'tis not the Maas. The Rhine is a great river, greater
than the Maas; and very long. I think it will be the Rhine."

"And so do I, Luke; for Denys bade him come down the Rhine. But even if
it is, he may turn off before he comes anigh his birthplace. He does not
pine for me as I for him; that is clear. Luke, do you not think he has
deserted me?" She wanted him to contradict her, but he said, "It looks
very like it; what a fool he must be!"

"What do we know?" objected Margaret imploringly.

"Let me think again," said Luke. "I cannot gallop."

The result of this meditation was this. He knew a station about sixty
miles up the Rhine, where all the public boats put in; and he would go
to that station, and try and cut the truant off. To be sure he did not
even know him by sight; but as each boat came in he would mingle with
the passengers, and ask if one Gerard was there. "And, mistress, if you
were to give me a bit of a letter to him; for, with us being strangers,
mayhap a won't believe a word I say."

"Good, kind, thoughtful Luke, I will (how I have undervalued thee!).
But give me till supper-time to get it writ." At supper she put a letter
into his hand with a blush; it was a long letter, tied round with silk
after the fashion of the day, and sealed over the knot.

Luke weighed it in his hand, with a shade of discontent, and said to her
very gravely, "Say your father was not dreaming, and say I have the luck
to fall in with this man, and say he should turn out a better bit of
stuff than I think him, and come home to you then and there--what is to
become o' me?"

Margaret coloured to her very brow. "Oh, Luke, Heaven will reward thee.
And I shall fall on my knees and bles