d fled from
the house.

[Illustration: "BUT SHE HELD HER PEACE."]

Oh, what stress of life and death was in her footsteps! Only to
reach the kirk! If she could do that, she would cling to the altar
and die there rather than surrender Vala to unknown miseries. Love
and terror gave her wings. She did not turn her head; she did not
feel the frozen earth or the cutting east wind; she saw nothing
but Vala's small face on her breast, and she heard nothing but the
echo in her heart of those terrible words threatening her with the
loss of her child.

When she reached the kirk the service had begun. The minister
was praying. She went into the nearest pew, and though all were
standing, she laid Vala on the seat, and slipped to her knees beside
her. She could not now cry out as she longed to do, and sob her
fright and anguish away at God's feet. "Folk would wonder at me. I
would disturb the service." These were her thoughts as soon as
the pressure of her flight was over. For the solemn voice of the
minister praying, the strength of numbers, the holy influence of
the time and place, cooled her passionate sense of wrong and danger,
and she was even a little troubled at her abandonment of what was
usual and Sabbath-like.

The altar now looked a long way off; only Sinclair at touch could
have forced her down that guarded aisle to its shelter. Heaven itself
was nearer, and God needed no explanations. He knew all. What was
the law of man to him? And he feared not their disapproval. Thus
in her great strait she overleaped her creed, and cast herself on
him who is "a God of the afflicted, an helper of the oppressed, an
upholder of the weak, a protector of the forlorn, a savior of them
that are without hope."

When the preaching was over David and Barbara came to her; and David
knit his brows when he saw her face, for it was the face of a woman
who had seen something dreadful. Her eyes were full of fear and
anguish, and she was yet white and trembling with the exertion of
her hard flight.

"Nanna," he said, "what has happened?"

"My husband has come back."

"I heard last night that his ship was in harbor."

"He has come for Vala. He will take her from me. She will die of
neglect and hard usage. He may give her to some stranger who will be
cross to her. O David! David!"

"He shall not touch her."

"O David!"

"Put her in my arms _now_."

"Do you mean this?"

"I do."

"Can I trust you, David?"

"You may put it to an