Sometimes I have a deep vein of discretion, though nobody else perceives it, and I always feel myself below my proper level, when I work it. But a man who has just escaped foul murder by a hair's breadth, and may meet the like to-morrow with the turn of the hair against him, must--unless he is weary of his life--take some thought of his actions. And I felt by no means weary of my life, but kindly and warmly in love with it, when certain glances made it sparkle, like a dewdrop in the morning. Not a word must I say to any one about that dastardly attempt, unless it were to the faithful Stepan, who might cast some light upon it. He had warned me; perhaps he knew that some one longed to do away with me. He would take it as the natural outcome of my intimacy at the camp; and now he approved of "milord's" suit, and urged him to put more steam on. Probably he knew why those two villains had lain in wait for poor Allai, and were trying by torture to make a traitor of him. And Stepan had clearly some reason of his own for keeping his master in the dark about it. Moreover, he was struggling with the English language, manifestly for my benefit. With this resolution I went to bed, and dreamed neither of thickets, nor bullets, nor bravoes, nor anything else that was nasty; but only of sweet Dariel singing the song of the stork like a nightingale, and coming with white wings to my window, where I caught her with a pair of reins. By this time Grace was in such a state of mind about her noble stockbroker, that brother George might have fifty holes in his hat, or in his head almost, without the loving sister coming to brush, or darn, or even poultice them. Of this I made no grievance, but went so far as to be unaware of it; and when her conscience began to work, I showed her that I had bought a thimble, and she called me a heartless molly-coddle. "Never mind. There are better girls than you who can appreciate me," I answered with a superior smile, and she flew into a passion. Such is feminine jealousy. They want to love some new-comer better, yet we are not to know it, or to feel the difference. Most heartily I wished poor Jackson Stoneman only half as good a bargain as he fancied he had made of it; for the blindness of a man in love is to others quite ridiculous. And I knew that although Grace was blessed with many of the merits he had inspired her with, no one else could think her fit to hold a candle to Dariel. Yet for the world I did not wish to hear any one praise my darling, unless it were her father or myself; for it was our business only.