Her heart beat against his so wildly, that she could have said no more if she had tried. But she had no need to try. For he said:-- “_Would_ you marry me this summer, dear? It would make me very happy.... I have not dared to ask it.” “I would marry you to-morrow.” Helen lifted her head, and “shame departed, shamed” from her sweet, wet face. “I would marry you to-day. I want to be near you. I want ... if anything--whatever comes.” “Whatever comes,” he answered solemnly, “we ought to be together--now.” Thus they deceived each other--neither owning to the tender fault--with the divine deceit of love. Helen comforted herself that she had not said a word of threat or danger or escape, and that Bayard suspected nothing of the cloudburst which hung over him. He let her think so, smiling tenderly. For he knew it all the time; and more, far more than Helen ever knew. XXVII. The Professor threw himself into the situation with a fatherly tenderness which went to Bayard’s heart; but the theologian was disconcerted by this glimpse into real life. He had been so occupied with the misery of the next world that he had never investigated the hell of this one. He was greatly perplexed. “As man to man, Bayard,” he said, “you must tell me the exact amount of truth in those womanly alarms which agitate my daughter’s heart, and to which I allowed myself to yield without, perhaps, sufficient reflection. I find it difficult to believe that any harm can actually befall you in a New England town. That Windover would really injure you? It seems to me, in cool blood, incredible.” “_Windover_ would not,” replied Bayard, smiling. “They don’t love me, but they don’t mob a man for that. _Windover_ won’t harm me. Did you ever hear a phrase, common along the coast, here, Professor--‘_Rum done it_’?” The Cesarea Professor shook his head. “I am not familiar with the phrase,” he urged; “it lacks in grammar”-- “What it gains in pith,” interrupted Bayard; “but it sums up the situation. A business that thrives on the ruin of men is not likely to be sensitive in the direction of inflicting unnecessary suffering. I have successfully offended the liquor interests of the whole vicinity. The new chapel represents to them the growth of the only power in this town which they have found reason to fear. That’s the amount of it.” “But the--churches, Bayard--the Christian classes? The ecclesiastical methods of restraining vice?” “The ecclesiastical methods do not shut up the saloons,” said Bayard gently. “Angel Alley is not afraid of the churches.” “I am not familiar with the literature of the temperance movement,” observed the Professor helplessly. “It is a foreign subject to me. I am not prepared to argue with you.” “You will find some of it on my library shelves,” said Bayard; “it might interest you some time to glance at it.”