rs,
Pyn, and if you want to keep yourself out of a mess, never interfere
and never volunteer. So here they be. But if you will take an old
man's advice, I do say to you, burn the letters. It will be better far
than to be reading them."

"Why will it be better?"

"There be letters worse than death drugs. If you do buy a bottle of
arsenic, the man will put its character on the bottle. You see
'poison' and you be warned. But young men do write poison, and worse
than poison, to young women, and no warning outside the letter. It
isn't fair, now, is it?"

"Why did you take charge of the poison?"

"To be sure! Why did I? Just because it was for John Penelles' little
girl, and I thought mayhap she'd take a warning from me. Don't you
read them letters, my dear. If you do, let the words go in at one ear
and out of the other. Roland Tresham! he be nothing to trust to! Aw,
my dear--a leaky boat--a boat adrift; no man at the helm; no helm to
man; no sail; no compass; no anchor; no anything for a woman to trust
to! There, then, I have had my say; if this say be of no 'count,
twould be the same if I talked my tongue away. If you come again and
there be any letters, you will find them under the turned boat--slip
your hand in--so. Dear me! You be fluttering and wuttering like a
bird. Poor dear! Step into my boat and I'll put you back home. You
look as quailed as a faded flower."

Thus Pyn talked as he helped Denas into the boat and slowly settled
himself to the oars. Afterward he said nothing, but he looked at Denas
in a way that troubled her and made her thankful to escape his silent,
pitiful condemnation. Her mother was still absent when she reached the
cottage, and she was so weary that she was very grateful for the
solitude. She shut her eyes for a few minutes and collected her
strength, and then opened Roland's letters.

They were full of happiness--full of wonders--full of love. He was
going to Switzerland with his father. Elizabeth was there, and Miss
Caroline Burrell, and a great many people whom they knew. But for him,
no one was there. "Denas was all he longed for, cared for, lived for!"
Oh, much more of the same kind, for Roland's love lay at the point of
his pen.

And he told her also that he had heard many singers, many famous
singers, and none with a voice so wildly sweet, so enthralling as her
voice. "If you were only on the stage, Denas," he wrote, "you could
sing the world to your feet; you could make a great