the one, or drop the other; you cannot maintain them both."

As I finished very sternly a speech which had exhausted me more than ten
rounds of wrestling--but I was carried away by the truth, as sometimes
happens to all of us--Tom had not a word to say; albeit his mind was
so much more nimble and rapid than ever mine was. He leaned against the
mantelpiece (a newly-invented affair in his house) as if I had corded
him to it, even as I spoke of doing. And he laid one hand on his breast
in a way which made Annie creep softly to him, and look at me not like a
sister.

"You have done me good, John," he said at last, and the hand he gave me
was trembling: "there is no other man on God's earth would have dared
to speak to me as you have done. From no other would I have taken it.
Nevertheless every word is true; and I shall dwell on it when you are
gone. If you never did good in your life before, John, my brother, you
have done it now."

He turned away, in bitter pain, that none might see his trouble; and
Annie, going along with him, looked as if I had killed our mother. For
my part, I was so upset, for fear of having gone too far, that without
a word to either of them, but a message on the title-page of King
James his Prayer-book, I saddled Kickums, and was off, and glad of the
moorland air again.

[Illustration: 566.jpg Tailpiece]

CHAPTER LXI

THEREFORE HE SEEKS COMFORT

[Illustration: 567.jpg Dulvertin Church and Street]

It was for poor Annie's sake that I had spoken my mind to her husband so
freely, and even harshly. For we all knew she would break her heart, if
Tom took to evil ways again. And the right mode of preventing this
was, not to coax, and flatter, and make a hero of him (which he did for
himself, quite sufficiently), but to set before him the folly of the
thing, and the ruin to his own interests. They would both be vexed with
me, of course, for having left them so hastily, and especially just
before dinner-time; but that would soon wear off; and most likely they
would come to see mother, and tell her that I was hard to manage, and
they could feel for her about it.

Now with a certain yearning, I know not what, for softness, and for one
who could understand me--for simple as a child though being, I found
few to do that last, at any rate in my love-time--I relied upon Kickum's
strength to take me round by Dulverton. It would make the journey some
eight miles longer, but what was that to a brisk y