as! His beard and mustache were shaved off; his hair was
close cut. But there was no disguising his wild, brown eyes, or the
peculiar movement of his spare, wiry figure, as he walked slowly to and
fro in the moonlight waiting for Naomi. For the moment, my own
agitation almost overpowered me; I had so firmly disbelieved that John
Jago was a living man!

"What shall I do?" Naomi repeated.

"Is the door of the dairy open?" I asked.

"No; but the door of the tool-house, round the corner, is not locked."

"Very good. Show yourself at the window, and say to him, 'I am coming
directly.'"

The brave girl obeyed me without a moment's hesitation.

There had been no doubt about his eyes and his gait; there was no doubt
now about his voice, as he answered softly from below--"All right!"

"Keep him talking to you where he is now," I said to Naomi, "until I
have time to get round by the other way to the tool-house. Then pretend
to be fearful of discovery at the dairy, and bring him round the
corner, so that I can hear him behind the door."

We left the house together, and separated silently. Naomi followed my
instructions with a woman's quick intelligence where stratagems are
concerned. I had hardly been a minute in the tool-house before I heard
him speaking to Naomi on the other side of the door.

The first words which I caught distinctly related to his motive for
secretly leaving the farm. Mortified pride--doubly mortified by Naomi's
contemptuous refusal and by the personal indignity offered to him by
Ambrose--was at the bottom of his conduct in absenting himself from
Morwick. He owned that he had seen the advertisement, and that it had
actually encouraged him to keep in hiding!

"After being laughed at and insulted and denied, I was glad," said the
miserable wretch, "to see that some of you had serious reason to wish
me back again. It rests with you, Miss Naomi, to keep me here, and to
persuade me to save Ambrose by showing myself and owning to my name."

"What do you mean?" I heard Naomi ask, sternly.

He lowered his voice; but I could still hear him.

"Promise you will marry me," he said, "and I will go before the
magistrate to-morrow, and show him that I am a living man."

"Suppose I refuse?"

"In that case you will lose me again, and none of you will find me till
Ambrose is hanged."

"Are you villain enough, John Jago, to mean what you say?" asked the
girl, raising her voice.

"If you attempt to give the a