"Ye would ef ye keered a straw, a bare straw." "Uncle Lucy jes' say, 'Wait awhile.' It's jes' 'awhile,' else I would go agin his cornsent." "Ye don't keer," he reiterated dolorously, for her protest was welcome to him. "Uncle Lucy jes' say," she went on very fast, "jes' wait till that man ez you-uns shot in Tanglefoot Cove gits well. He'll git well, I reckon. Ye said he war powerful hearty an' big. Uncle Lucy say he ain't goin' ter lemme marry a man ez mought be tried fur his life, ef he kin holp it." "Ef ye keered fur me, ye wouldn't gin _that_ fur Cap'n Lucy's word!" he asseverated, as he lifted his arm high in the air and snapped his fingers resonantly. The horse shied suddenly at the sound, and pulled heavily on the hand that held the bit. Her eyes were full of tears. "Jack," she said in deep humiliation, "I can't 'low at this time o' day ez I don't keer fur uncle Lucy's word. I never eat none o' my own bread in my life." She knew that he had turned and was staring at her, although she could not distinguish him through her tears. If she had never loved him, her heart might have warmed to him now, for the vehemence, the partisanship, with which he protested her independence. "Eat yer own bread!" he cried in a ringing voice that made her shrink. "Ye never eat nuthin' else! Who churns, an' sweeps, an' mends, an' cooks, an' milks cows, this many an' many a day? That thar dough-faced Julia?" To his amazement she burst out laughing, but the next moment she was sobbing in good earnest, and he hardly knew whether she was glad or sorry. He scarcely paused to wonder. He went tumultuously on to repudiate the obligations that so lowered her pride and her title to self-respect. "Who hoes, an' sews, an' weaves, an' spins, an' raises the chickens an' tur-rkeys an' sech, an' answers old Cap'n Lucy's call 'Ad'licia! Ad'licia!' all day long? That thar long, lank, limp Julia? Ef I war ter marry ye an' take ye away from thar, that house would fall down, I reckon, an' old Cap'n Lucy knows it." His well-set bluish-gray eyes had brightened as he spoke; he smiled genially; his face was handsome and intelligent with this expression. The next moment it clouded heavily. He could not do this as almost any other man might,--marry a wife and take her home. He was a fugitive and an exile by reason of the jeopardy of the man whom he had shot in Tanglefoot Cove, and who still hung between life and death, his own fate involving that of his enemy. Jack Espey felt sure that he could have proven self-defense, had he permitted himself to be apprehended at the time. But from the circumstance of his hasty flight, uncertain what he had done and animated by ignorant terrors of the law, the lapse of time, the dispersion of witnesses, he feared to submit his action to a legal arbitrament now.