“Oh, it’s nothing much,” he said. “It’s that rebellious heroine of mine. She’s weighing on my mind, that’s all. She’s very real to me, that woman; and, by Jove! I’ve been as jealous as a lover for two days over a fancy that came into my head. You’ll laugh when I tell you, but I’ve been half afraid somebody else would take her up and—well, treat her badly. There is something that tells me that she has been forced into some brutal situation by somebody, somewhere, within the past two or three days. I believe I’d want to kill a man who did that.” I didn’t laugh at him. I was the man who was in a fair way to get killed for “doing that,” and I thought laughter would be a little bit misplaced; but I am not a coward, and I didn’t flinch. I confessed. I tried to ease his mind by telling him what I had attempted to do. “It was a mistake,” he said, shortly, when I had finished. “And you must promise me one thing,” he added, very seriously. “I’ll promise anything,” I said, meekly. “Don’t ever try anything of the sort again,” he went on, gravely. “If you had succeeded in writing that story, and subjected her to all that horror, I should never have spoken to you again. As it is, I realize that what you did was out of the kindness of your heart, prompted by a desire to be of service to me, and I’m just as much obliged as I can be, only I don’t want any assistance.” “Until you ask me to, Stuart,” I replied, “I’ll never write another line about her; but you’d better keep very mum about her yourself, or get her copyrighted. The way she upset that horse on Osborne, completely obliterating him, and at the same time getting out of the way of that little simian Count, in spite of all I could do to place her under obligations to both of them, was what the ancients would have called a caution. She has made a slave of me forever, and I venture to predict that if you don’t hurry up and get her into a book, somebody else will; and whoever does will make a name for himself alongside of which that of Smith will sink into oblivion.” “Count on me for that,” said he. “‘Faint heart never won fair lady,’ and I don’t intend to stop climbing just because I fear a few more falls.” VI ANOTHER CHAPTER FROM HARLEY “_Was ever woman in this humour woo’d_? _Was ever woman in this humour won_? _I’ll have her_,—_but I will not keep her long_.” —“Richard III.”