He broke out into a harsh laugh, which the echoes repeated so promptly, and with apparently so malignant an intent, that he checked it hastily, and the sound died on his colorless lips; but far down the black tunnel something uncanny seemed to fall to laughing suddenly, and as suddenly to break off; and again a further voice still was lifted in weird mirth, and the laughter failed midway. He waited for silence, and then he leaned against a higher ledge near which she was sitting, and, resting his elbow on it, looked at her once more, wondering how he might best revert to his object of propitiation. He was remembering that Adelicia had told him how prone was Julia to notice slights, and how quick to take offense. He felt hardly equal to the effort of repairing the damage of his outbreak against her relative, so spent was his scanty strength by the violence of his anger and his agitation. He could only look at her silently, more forlorn, more pallid, more appealing, than before. "I oughtn't ter think hard o' Ad'licia," he said at last. "Nobody else would, I know. Would they?" he added. For, with Julia's silent habit, conversation was somewhat difficult without a direct appeal. It was a direct appeal. She liked to remember that afterward. "Waal," she said, slowly and judicially, as if weighing matters submitted for arbitrament, "I 'low Ad'licia treated ye right mean, fust an' las'." "Why?" he rejoined, in genuine interest, his face resuming its normal expression before flight and hardship and darkness and loneliness and fear and privation had so marked it. "'Kase," she went on in that soft, unfamiliar voice that the echoes seemed hardly to follow, so complete, so indivisible, was every flutelike tone, "she oughter married ye whenst ye axed her--ef she liked ye." A faint surprise was dawning in his eyes. "Cap'n Lucy wouldn't gin his cornsent," he said succinctly. "I reckon he 'lowed 't war his jewty ter say no. But ef Ad'licia hed married ye ennyhows, do ye reckon dad would hev let that leetle fice o' the law, 'Dolphus Ross, jail _his_ nephew-in-law 'kase a man he fought in Tanglefoot Cove _mought_ die ef he didn't hev the industry ter git well? Naw, sir: ye'd hev hed dad an' Luther fur backers, an' they air toler'ble stiff backers, fur enny man. Dad would hev fixed a way out'n it fur ye, fur sure, count o' Ad'licia. She war a turr'ble fool not ter marry ye, an' I tole her so." The surprise, the doubt, and at last the conviction successively expressed in Espey's face might have been easily discriminated by one skilled in reading the human physiognomy. But Julia possessed no such craft, and when he spoke she appreciated no change in his manner, albeit it was not guarded; for he did not conceive it necessary to closely screen the discovery of a secret of which he perceived that Julia was herself unconscious.