en her dance with Woodward; and this she did not attempt to deny,
because she could not; but as for their tryst at the well, she felt
satisfied, from her knowledge of his jealous and violent character, that
if he had been aware of it, it would not have been by seeking the fact
through the medium of his threats and her fears that he would have
proceeded. Had he seen Woodward, for instance, and herself holding a
secret meeting in such a place and at such an hour, she concluded justly
that the _middogue_ or dagger, for the use of which he had been already
so celebrated, would have been brought into requisition against either
one or both.

"I'll talk no more to you," she replied, with a flushed face; "for even
if I tould you the truth, you wouldn't believe me. I did meet him, then;
are you satisfied now?"

This admission was an able stroke of policy on her part, as the reader
will soon perceive.

"O," he exclaimed, with a bitter, or, rather, a furious expression of
face, "_dar manim_, if you had, you wouldn't dare to confess as much.
But listen to me; if I ever hear or know, to my own satisfaction, that
you meet him, or keep his company, or put yourself in his power,
I'll send six inches of this "--and he pulled out the glittering
weapon--"into your heart and his; so now be warned and avoid him, and
don't bring down my vengeance on you both."

"I don't see what right you have to bring me over the coals about any
one. My father was forcin' me to marry you; but I now tell you to your
teeth, that I never had the slightest intention of it. No! I wouldn't
take the wealth of the barony, and be the wife of sich a savage
murdherer. No man wid blood upon his hands and upon his sowl, as you
have--a public robber, a murdherer, an outlaw--will ever be my husband.
What right have you to tell me who I'm to spake to, or who I'm not to
spake to?"

"Ah," he replied, "that wasn't your language to me not long ago."

"But you were a different boy then from what you are now. If you had
kept your name free from disgrace and blood, I might have loved you; but
I cannot love a man with such crimes to answer for as you have."

"You accuse me of shedding blood," he replied; "that is false. I have
never shed blood nor taken life; but, on the contrary, did all in my
power to prevent those who have placed me at their head from doin' so.
Yet, when they did it in my absence, and against my orders, the blame
and guilt is charged upon me because I a