"Not Ad'licia! Oh my Lord, no! Jes' leave her a-hopin' fur the bes'!" He had hardly realized how deeply he had resented Adelicia's optimistic resignation to his fate. His sarcastic laugh was broken off halfway in his eager resumption of his argument. "Ad'licia mought feel obligated ter tell Cap'n Lucy, an' 'bide by his word. With her a-hopin' fur the bes', an' Cap'n Lucy's foolin' long o' his jewty ter his orphin niece, I'll git the sher'ff's bracelets locked round my wrists; an' the jail ain't ez sightly a place ez this beautisome spot. I be a man fur myself, an' I can't ondertake ter cut out all my cloth with Cap'n Lucy's scissors. Ad'licia's contented. Leff her be! She'll hope fur the bes' with a twenty horse power." He did not remember Mrs. Larrabee's astute remark in the advice she had given him to the effect that "perlitin' round the t'other gal wouldn't go so hard with him," if she were really a "gyardin lily" for beauty. He only felt vaguely that he had not heretofore appreciated the radiance of the face that Julia bent upon him; he did not understand that it was the moment, the unrealized thought, which so embellished it, as she said cogitatingly, "Naw, 't won't do ter tell Ad'licia. I won't tell her." "See ter it that ye don't," he sternly urged her. And once more he was impressed with the idea that he really had not before known how singularly beautiful she was. "Ye see, Julia," he said, lowering his voice confidentially, "I can't git away, 'kase I got no horse; an' ef I hed one, I hev got no money, an' I'd jes' be tuk somewhar, now that the folks hev got sot onto the trail of me. So I 'lowed I'd hide hyarabout till I git news from Tanglefoot ez that man hev got better. Ye see I be hopin' fur the bes', too," he added, with a pathetic smile. "It's all I kin do." "How do ye git suthin' ter eat?" she asked suddenly. Espey looked embarrassed. "Oh, I makes out," he said evasively. "I gits out at night sometimes." She assumed that he hunted or trapped at night for provisions. He noted that she did not argue nor contend, as Adelicia was wont to do. She accepted his arrangements as intrinsically the best. "I could fetch ye suthin' wunst in a while," she suggested. He looked aghast at the idea. "Don't ye do that, Julia," he said warningly. "It mought git ye or Cap'n Lucy liable ter the law. Don't ye do it. I'll make out somehows." Then seeing her reluctance, "Ef I need ennything, or want ter git communication with folks outside, I'll let ye know. I'll--I'll put this hyar pipe in a nick in them rocks, jes' west, clost inter the freestone spring nigh yer dad's house." She listened, breathless, and beamed with delight at the feasibility of this plan. "An' whenever I pass hyar," she said, with wide, illumined eyes and a flickering flush of excitement,--"an' I'll kem frequent,--I'll drap wild flowers in the road. An' ye will see 'em, an' know I hev been by an' been a-studyin' 'bout you-uns. An' that will be plumb comp'ny fur ye."