arnest.

"Here I am, ready and willing," said he, quickly. "Only say the word,
and see if I 'm not as good as my promise."

She took two or three turns of the room without speaking; then wheeling
round suddenly, she stood right in front of where he sat, her face pale,
and her whole expression that of one deeply occupied with one purpose.

"I don't believe," said she, in a slow, collected voice, "that there
exists a more painful position than that of a woman who, without what
the world calls a natural, protector, must confront the schemes of a
man with the inferior weapons of her sex, and who yet yearns for the
privilege of setting a life against a life."

"You'd like to be able to fight a duel, then?" asked he, gravely.

"Yes. That my own hand might vindicate my own wrong, I 'd consent freely
to lose it the hour after."

"That must needs have been no slight injury that suggests such a
reparation."

She only nodded in reply.

"It is nothing that the Heathcotes--"

"The Heathcotes!" broke she in, with a scornful smile; "it is not from
such come heavy wrongs. No, no; they are in no wise mixed up in what I
allude to, and if they had been, I would need no help to deal with them.
The injury I speak of occurred long ago,--years before I knew you. I
have told you,"--here she paused, as if for strength to go on,--"I have
told you that I accept your aid, and on your own conditions. Very few
words will suffice to show for what I need it. Before I go further,
however, I would ask you once more, are you ready to meet any and every
peril for my sake? Are you prepared to encounter what may risk even your
life, if called upon? I ask this now, and with the firm assurance that
if you pledge your word you will keep it."

"I give you my solemn oath that I'll stand by you, if it lead me to the
drop before the jail."

She gave a slight shudder. Some old memories had, perhaps, crossed her
at the moment; but she was soon self-possessed again.

"The case is briefly this. And mind," said she, hurriedly, "where I do
not seem to give you full details, or enter into clear explanations, it
is not from inadvertence that I do so, but that I will tell no more
than I wish, nor will I be questioned. The case is this: I was married
unhappily. I lived with a man who outraged and insulted me, and I met
with one who assumed to pity me and take my part. I confided to him my
miseries, the more freely that he had been the witness of the cruelties