"Just what I thought, Miss Hannah! which made me the more willing to bring de message. So now if you'll jest take de money an' give me de cloth, I'll be off. I has got some clocks and umberell's to mend to-night. And dat minds me! if you'll give me dat broken coffee-mill o' yourn I'll fix it at de same time," said the professor. Hannah complied with all his requests, and he took his departure. He had scarcely got out of sight when Hannah had another visitor, Reuben Gray, who entered the hut with looks of deprecation and words of apology. "Hannah, woman, I couldn't wait till Sunday! I couldn't rest! Knowing of your situation, I felt as if I must come to you and say what I had on my mind! Do you forgive me?" "For what?" asked Hannah in surprise. "For coming afore Sunday." "Sit down, Reuben, and don't be silly. As well have it over now as any other time." "Very well, then, Hannah," said the man, drawing a chair to the table at which she sat working, and seating himself. "Now, then, what have you to say, Reuben?" "Well, Hannah, my dear, you see I didn't want to make a disturbance while the body of that poor girl lay unburied in the house; but now I ask you right up and down who is the wretch as wronged Nora?" demanded the man with a look of sternness Hannah had never seen on his patient face before. "Why do you wish to know, Reuben?" she inquired in a low voice. "To kill him." "Reuben Gray!" "Well, what's the matter, girl?" "Would you do murder?" "Sartainly not, Hannah; but I will kill the villain as wronged Nora wherever I find him, as I would a mad dog." "It would be the same thing! It would be murder!" "No, it wouldn't, Hannah. It would be honest killing. For when a cussed villain hunts down and destroys an innocent girl, he ought to be counted an outlaw that any man may slay who finds him. And if so be he don't get his death from the first comer, he ought to be sure of getting it from the girl's nearest male relation or next friend. And if every such scoundrel knew he was sure to die for his crime, and the law would hold his slayer guiltless, there would be a deal less sin and misery in this world. As for me, Hannah, I feel it to be my solemn duty to Nora, to womankind, and to the world, to seek out the wretch as wronged her and kill him where I find him, just as I would a rattlesnake as had bit my child." "They would hang you for it, Reuben!" shuddered Hannah. "Then they'd do very wrong! But they'd not hang me, Hannah! Thank Heaven, in these here parts we all vally our women's innocence a deal higher than we do our lives, or even our honor. And if a man is right to kill another in defense of his own life, he is doubly right to do so in defense of woman's honor. And judges and juries know it, too, and feel it, as has been often proved. But anyways, whether or no," said Reuben Gray, with the dogged persistence for which men of his class are often noted, "I want to find that man to give him his dues."