hout repeating
his question.

'She said--and I think her tale were true, though I cannot get to t'
rights on it, think on it as I will--as Philip saved her husband's
life somewheere nearabouts to Jerusalem. She would have it that t'
captain--for I think I'll niver ca' him Kinraid again--was in a
great battle, and were near upon being shot by t' French, when
Philip--our Philip--come up and went right into t' fire o' t' guns,
and saved her husband's life. And she spoke as if both she and t'
captain were more beholden to Philip than words could tell. And she
come to see me, to try and get news on him.

'It's a queer kind o' story,' said Kester, meditatively. 'A should
ha' thought as Philip were more likely to ha' gi'en him a shove into
t' thick on it, than t' help him out o' t' scrape.'

'Nay!' said Sylvia, suddenly looking straight at Kester; 'yo're out
theere. Philip had a deal o' good in him. And I dunnot think as he'd
ha' gone and married another woman so soon, if he'd been i'
Kinraid's place.'

'An' yo've niver heared on Philip sin' he left?' asked Kester, after
a while.

'Niver; nought but what she told me. And she said that t' captain
made inquiry for him right and left, as soon after that happened as
might be, and could hear niver a word about him. No one had seen
him, or knowed his name.'

'Yo' niver heared of his goin' for t' be a soldier?' persevered
Kester.

'Niver. I've told yo' once. It were unlike Philip to think o' such a
thing.'

'But thou mun ha' been thinkin' on him at times i' a' these years.
Bad as he'd behaved hissel', he were t' feyther o' thy little un.
What did ta think he had been agait on when he left here?'

'I didn't know. I were noane so keen a-thinking on him at first. I
tried to put him out o' my thoughts a'together, for it made me like
mad to think how he'd stood between me and--that other. But I'd
begun to wonder and to wonder about him, and to think I should like
to hear as he were doing well. I reckon I thought he were i' London,
wheere he'd been that time afore, yo' know, and had allays spoke as
if he'd enjoyed hissel' tolerable; and then Molly Brunton told me on
t' other one's marriage; and, somehow, it gave me a shake in my
heart, and I began for to wish I hadn't said all them words i' my
passion; and then that fine young lady come wi' her story--and I've
thought a deal on it since,--and my mind has come out clear.
Philip's dead, and it were his spirit as come to t' othe