In fearful chorus.
Sure to be killed! Sure to be killed!
O fools, how dare ye!
Sure to be killed--and serve us right!
Ah! love, but were we?

The hill was dangerous, we knew,
And knew that we must take it;
The law was strong,--that too we knew
Yet dared to break it.
And those who'd fain know how we fared
Follow and find us,
Safe on the hills, with all the world
Safely behind us.

Rosalind smiled as I finished. "I'm afraid," she said, "the song is as
dangerous as the hill. Of course it has more meanings than one?"

"Perhaps two," I assented.

"And the second more important than the first."

"Maybe," I smiled; "however, I hope you like it."

Rosalind was very reassuring on that point, and then said musingly, as
if half to herself, "But that hill is dangerous, you know; and young
people would do well to pay attention to the danger-board!"

Her voice shook as she spoke the last two or three words, and I looked
at her in some surprise.

"Yes, I know it," she added, her voice quite broken; and before I
realised what was happening, there she was with her beautiful head down
upon the table, and sobbing as if her heart would break.

"Forgive me for being such a fool," she managed to wring out.

Now, usually I never interrupt a woman when she is crying, as it only
encourages her to continue; but there was something so unexpected and
mysterious about Rosalind's sudden outburst that it was impossible not
to be sympathetic. I endeavoured to soothe her with such words as
seemed fitting; and as she was crying because she really couldn't help
it, she didn't cry long.

These tears proved, what certain indications of manner had already
hinted to me, that Rosalind was more artless than I had at first
supposed. She was a woman of the world, in that she lived in it, and
loved its gaieties, but there was still in her heart no little of the
child, as is there not in the hearts of all good women--or men?

And this you will realise when I tell you the funny little story which
she presently confided to me as the cause of her tears.

CHAPTER IV

MARRIAGE A LA MODE

For Rosalind was no victim of the monster man, as you may have supposed
her, no illustration of his immemorial perfidies. On the contrary, she
was one half of a very happy marriage, and, in a sense, her sufferings
at the moment were merely theoretical, if one may so describe the
sufferings cause