Eve's face quivered with emotion, and Reuben, seizing his advantage, continued: "Perhaps you think I'm saying this because I'm wanting you for myself, but, as God will judge us, 'tisn't that that's making me speak, Eve;" and he held out his hand toward her. "You've known me for many a long year now--my heart's been laid more bare to you than to any living creature: do you believe what I'm saying to you?" "Yes, Reuben, I do," she answered firmly, though the tears, no longer restrained, came streaming from her eyes; "and you must also believe what I say to you--that my cousin is a man as honest and upright as yourself, that he wouldn't defraud any one of the value of a pin's point, nor take a thing that he didn't think himself he'd got a proper right to." "Good God, Eve! is it possible that you can speak like this of one who gets his living by smuggling?" and a spasm of positive agony passed over Reuben's face as he tried to realize the change of thought and feeling which could induce a calm defence of such iniquity. "What's the difference whether a man robs me or he robs the king? Isn't he stealing just the same?" "No, certainly not," said Eve, quickly. "I can't explain it all to you, but I know this--that what they bring over they buy and pay for, and certainly, therefore, have some right to." "Have a right to?" repeated Reuben. "Well, that's good! So men have a right to smuggle, have they? and smuggling isn't stealing? Come! I should just like this cousin of yours to give me half an hour of his company to argue out that matter in." "My cousin isn't at home," said Eve, filled with a sudden horror of what might be expected from an argument between two such tempers as Reuben and Adam possessed. "And if you've only come here to argue, whether 'tis with me or with them, Reuben, 'tis a waste of time that'll do no good to you nor any of us." Reuben did not speak. He stood and for a few moments looked fixedly at her: then he turned away and hid his face in his hands. The sudden change from anger to sorrow came upon Eve unexpectedly: anything like a display of emotion was so foreign to Reuben that she could not help being affected by it, and after a minute's struggle with herself she laid her hand on his arm, saying gently, "Reuben, don't let me think you've come all this long way only to quarrel and say bitter things to me: let me believe 'tis as you said--because you weren't satisfied, and felt, for mother's sake, you wanted to be a friend to me still. I feel now as if I ought to have told you when I wrote that I was going to marry my cousin Adam, but I didn't do it because I thought you'd write to me, and then 'twould be easier to speak; and when you didn't take no notice I thought you meant to let me go altogether, and I can't tell you how hurt I felt. I couldn't help saying to myself over and over again (though I was so angry with you I didn't know what to do), 'I shall never have another such friend as Reuben--never.'"