endly as a 'terral garamighty,'
you make me draw my breath thick as the blackamoors, as they say. I
did what I thought best," he said. "I did not think you would be in any
danger. I had not heard of the Maroons being so far south as Salem."

"Yet it is the man who foresees chances that succeeds, as you should
know by now, your honour. I was greatly touched by the offer you made
me--indeed, yes," she added, seeing the rapt eager look in his face. "I
had been told what had upset me, that Dyck Calhoun was guilty of killing
my father, and all the world seemed dreadful. Yes, in the reaction, it
was almost on my tongue to say yes to you, for you are a good talker,
you had skill in much that you did, and with honest advice from a wife
might do much more. So I was in a mind to say yes. I had had much to
try me, indeed, so very much. Ever since I first saw Dyck Calhoun he had
been the one man who had ever influenced me. He was for ever in my mind
even when he was in prison--oh, what is prison, what is guilt even to a
girl when she loves! Yes, I loved him. There it was. He was ever in
my mind, and I came here to Jamaica--he was here--for what else? Salem
could have been restored by Darius Boland or others, or I could have
sold it. I came to Jamaica to find him here--unwomanly, perhaps, you
will say."

"Unusual only with a genius--like you."

"Then you do not speak what is in your mind, your honour. You say what
you feel is the right thing to say--the slave of circumstances. I will
be wholly frank with you. I came here to see Dyck Calhoun, for I knew he
would not come to see me. Yes, there it was, a real thing in his heart.
If he had been a lesser man than he is, he would have come to America
when he was freed from prison. But he did not, would not, come. He knew
he had been found guilty of killing my father, and that for him and me
there could be no marriage--indeed he never asked me to marry him.

"Yet I know he would have done so if he could. When I came to know
what he was jailed for doing, I felt there was no place for him and me
together in the world. Yet my heart kept crying out to him, and I felt
there was but one thing left for me to do, and that was to make it
impossible for me to think of him even, or for him to think of me. Then
you came and offered me your hand. It was a hand most women might have
been glad to accept from the standpoint of material things. And you were
Irish like myself, and like the boy I loved. I