ng full well the risk she
ran--the possible end of her noble adventure--against the dissuasions
and the prayers of all her friends here. She stood in the doorway there,
and saw you cross the garden when you first came to seek her--saw you,
her father, distracted with grief and fear, and she suffered you to go
away. As you may know, nothing is more sacred to a Moor than the laws of
hospitality, and by those laws Sidi was bound to respect the wishes of
one who had claimed his protection. He could not betray her secret, but
he and his family did their utmost to persuade her from her purpose.
While you were yet in the town, they implored her to let them call you
back, and she refused. Failing in their entreaties, they despatched a
messenger to me; alas! when I arrived, she was gone. She went with a
company of merchants bound for Alger, and all that her friends here
could do was to provide her with a servant and letters, which will
ensure her safe conduct to Thadviir."

"But why has she gone there, Senor?" says I, having heard him in a maze
of wonderment to the end.

"Cannot you guess? Surely she must have given you some hint of her
purposes, for 'twas in her mind, as I learn, when she agreed to leave
England and come hither."

"Nothing--we know nothing," falters Dawson. "'Tis all mystery and
darkness. Only we did suppose to find happiness a-wandering about the
country, dancing and idling, as we did before."

"That dream was never hers," answers the Don. "She never thought to find
happiness in idling pleasure. 'Tis the joy of martyrdom she's gone to
find, seeking redemption in self-sacrifice."

"Be more explicit, sir, I pray," says I.

"In a word, then, she has gone to offer herself as a ransom for the real
Judith Godwin."

We were too overwrought for great astonishment; indeed, my chief
surprise was that I had not foreseen this event in Moll's desire to
return to Elche, or hit upon the truth in seeking an explanation of her
disappearance. 'Twas of a piece with her natural romantic disposition
and her newly awaked sense of poetic justice,--for here at one stroke
she makes all human atonement for her fault and ours,--earning her
husband's forgiveness by this proof of dearest love, and winning back
for ever an honoured place in his remembrance. And I bethought me of our
Lord's saying that greater love is there none than this: that one shall
lay down his life for another.

For some time Dawson stood silent, his arms f