“Yes. ’Twould be vastly mean in a man to attempt to harm the enemy who had come to his succor, had promised to pardon him, to let him escape. In a woman ’twould be worse than meanness; but what ’tis accounted by a creature of your sort, that’s neither honest man nor true woman, why, in sooth, I know not!” Again her gray eyes flashed a steely fire as they met his. There was a sudden touch of sex in the lowered eyelids, in the flush which came into her cheek, as she felt the young man’s gaze full upon her, saw his handsome features so near her own. She drew a deep, shuddering breath, and then said, in a fierce whisper, turning away her head, and moving nervously under the touch of his strong hands— “I care not to be helped, to be pardoned, by one who stands to me as a foe! ’Twas the first time I’d had a check, the first time I’d been hurt. The others—my comrades—might look at me askance, I thought, might treat me as a mere woman, despise me, when once they found me hurt, wounded, like one of themselves.” “Still, you need not have let your feminine spitefulness carry you so far!” “Feminine spitefulness!” echoed she; and she made a sudden, vain attempt to wrench her hands away. “Pshaw, you don’t understand! And in truth I did you no hurt.” “’Twas the fault of your feminine arm!” retorted Tregenna. “The intention was bad; so, thank Heaven, was your aim!” She clenched her teeth in rage and agony. Tregenna was interested, excited, in spite of himself, by this sudden revelation of the woman who looked upon herself as a sort of Joan of Arc, invulnerable, triumphant, bringing good fortune to her friends and ill luck to her enemies. He began to understand the movement of impotent rage which had caused her to behave so ungenerously. And he saw, too, that she now felt ashamed of her act of treachery, that she writhed beneath his taunts. “Let me go,” cried she, suddenly. “You—you—— Damn it, you hurt me!” Unfeminine as the reproach was, Tregenna was not unaffected by it. Not a very lovely or lovable side of a woman’s nature was this that she was revealing to him; but a woman’s it was for all that. “Well,” said he, after a moment’s pause, “I will let you go.” “You’ll trust me?” cried she, quite eagerly. “No,” retorted he, coolly. “I won’t trust you. But I can trust to my own limbs to hold my own in a struggle with you.” And he released her. She sprang up, drew back her shirt-sleeves, and looked at the red marks on her wrists. “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” said Tregenna. “So am not I,” retorted Ann. “I’ll show these marks to my kinsmen, my comrades; ’twill spur their spirits to see I have been so used.” “Egad, they need but little spurring! And in truth you would do better, if you care for your kinsmen, to warn them to desist from their unlawful practises. The king and the Government are alike resolved to put them down. A handful of men—and women—be they never so bold, can scarce hope to hold out long against such forces as they can bring.”