in the patois.

Gard stopped and turned, with a keen recollection of the same thing
having happened before. He remembered too how that occasion ended.

But Nance laid an entreating hand on his arm.

"Please--don't!"

Her voice sounded a little strange to him. If he had been able to see
her face now he would have found it pallid, in spite of its usual
healthy brown bloom.

She stood entreatingly till he turned and went on with her.

"He is evidently aching for another thrashing," he said grimly, as he
stalked beside her.

And presently they were in the cutting, and the unnerving vastness of
the gulfs opened out on either side. Gard felt like a blindfolded man
stumbling along a plank.

He involuntarily put out a groping hand and took hold of her cloak. A
little hand slipped out of the cloak and took his in charge, and so they
went through the darkness of the narrow way.

He breathed more freely when the further slope was reached, and only
then became aware that the hand that held his was all of a tremble. The
next moment he perceived that she was sobbing quietly.

"Nance!" he cried. "What is it? You are crying. Is it anything I--"

"No, no, no!" sobbed the wounded soul convulsively.

"What then? Tell me!"

"I cannot. I cannot."

"Nance--dear!" and he sought her hand again and stood holding it firmly.
"It is like stabs in my heart to hear you sobbing. I would give my life
to save you from trouble. Do you believe me, dear?"

"Yes, yes--"

"And you can trust me, dear, can you not? You distrusted me at first, I
know, but--"

"Oh, I do trust you, and I know you are good. And it is that that makes
it so wicked of him to say such things about us--"

In her excitement she had let slip more than she intended. She stopped
abruptly.

"Tom?"

She did not speak, but the wound welled open in another sob.

"Don't trouble about him, dear! I don't know what he said, but if it was
meant to make you doubt me, it was not true. You are more to me than
anything in the world, Nance, and I have never loved any other
woman--except my mother. Do you believe me?"

"Yes--oh, yes! I cannot help believing you. Oh, I wish sometimes that
Tom was dead. When I was very little I used to pray each night to God to
kill him."

"I'll teach him to leave you alone."

"I must go now. Grannie is waiting for her medicine."

He took the little hand under his arm and pressed it close to his side,
and they pushed on down the dark lan