es, and how am I to stand out when you
don't value me the worth of an old silver cup?"

"Come, come, Em, that's only to frighten a man." But she knew in his
tone that he was frightened.

"Not a bit! I should be ever so much better off in a tidy little house
where I could see all that came and went than up in your lane with
nought to go by but the market folk. 'Tis not everyone that would have
kept true to a big country lout like you, like that lady among the
salvage men that the King spoke of; and I get nothing by it but wait,
wait, wait, when there's stores of silver ready to your hand."

"Heaven knows, and you know, Emlyn, 'tis not for want of love."

"Heaven may know, but I don't."

"I gave my solemn word."

"And you have kept it these ten years, and all is changed." Then
altering her tone, "There now, I know it takes an hour to beat a notion
into that slow brain of yours, and here we be at home, and I shall have
madam after me. I'll leave you to see the sense of it, and if I do not
hear of something before long, why then I shall know how much you care
for poor little Emlyn."

With which last words she flitted within the gates, leaving Steadfast
still too much stunned to realise all she meant, as he turned homewards;
but all grew on him in time, the idea that Emlyn, his Emlyn, his orphan
of the battlefield, bereaved for the sake of King and Church, should be
striving to make him betray his trust! "The silver is Mine and the
gold is Mine," rang in his ears, and yet was it not cruel that when she
really loved him best, and sought to return to him as a refuge from the
many temptations to her lively spirit, he should be forced to leave her
in the midst of them--against her own warning and even entreaty, and
not only himself lose her, but lose her to one of those godless riotous
sailors who were the dread and bane of the neighbourhood? Was not a
human soul worth as much as a consecrated Chalice?

These were the debates in Steadfast's much tormented soul. He could
think, though he could not clothe his thoughts in words, and day after
day, night after night he did think, while Patience wondered at the
heavy moodiness that seemed to have come over him. He would not open his
lips to ask her counsel, being quite certain of what it would be, and
not choosing to hear her censure of Emlyn for what he managed to excuse
by the poor child's ignorance and want of training, and by her ardent
desire to be under his wing and es