g a good home in the middle of the night to drown
herself. In his conjectures he made Guthrie Carey the villain of the
piece--the young man who, after creating all the disturbance, had
significantly cleared out. Sailors were an immoral lot--a sweetheart in
every port, as the world knew. And this fellow--why, you had only to
look at his big, brawny build (Mr Goldsworthy was a small man) to see
that he had a brutal nature.

At any rate, the parson was satisfied that the heroine of the story
remained a "pure" girl--foolish, but womanly, and very, very
unfortunate. As she sat weeping by his side, dependent solely upon his
protection, he stroked her hand and looked at it--so shapely and
high-bred, the hand of a Pennycuick of the great house--a hand that
would be full of gold some day; and his thoughts were busy.

The beautiful Deborah was gone, and could never have been for him; he
had been an idiot to think it. She had no bent towards religion, was
ruinously dressy and extravagant, unhousewifely as a woman could be;
but Miss Pennycuick, great lady as she was, could cook and sew, was a
master hand with servants and with children, and had never failed of
interest in the church--nor in him. They had always been the best of
friends, he and she; did it not seem that Providence had decreed they
should be more? Why had he been sent to the dam in the nick of time,
when he had intended to stay at Redford until morning? Why was she
sitting here now, alone with him in his study, cut off from everybody
else in the world? The hand of the Lord was in it. Looks were of small
account when one considered her rank and the fortune she would inherit;
but, of course, he did not admit to himself that he considered any one
of these three things; nor that she was of age and her own mistress,
although she had just forced the fact upon him when, promising him to
make no further attempt upon her life, she announced an intention to
find a situation somewhere in which she would be able to support
herself apart from her family, and away from all who knew her. No, what
he considered was the will of God and the dictates of his conscience.
She had been given into his hands; he was bound to take care of her,
and there was but one way to do it. It would be wrong and cruel to
force her back to Redford. It was preposterous to think of making a
governess or companion of her, a daughter of the proud Pennycuicks. She
could not remain in his house as she was, wit