Part of this he admitted at once, but he ended brokenly: "'Tis a hard task you set for me. She's the vein of me bosom. 'Tis easy talkin', but the doin' is like takin' y'r heart in your two hands and throwin' it away. I knew she liked the lad--I had no doubt the lad liked her--but I did not believe she'd go to him so. I can't believe it yet--but I will not stand in her way. As I told her, I did not expect to tie her to an old hulk; I thought I was dying when I married her, and I only had the ceremony then to make sure that me money should feed her and protect her from the storms of the world. I wanted to take her out of a hole where she was sore pressed, and I wanted to make her people comfortable. I've brought her to this house. Me money has always been to her hand. It rejoices me to see her spend it, and I've been hoping that these things--me money--would make up for me poor, old, crippled body. I've been a rough man. I lived as men who have no ties have always lived--till I met her, then I quit the game. I put aside everything that could make her ashamed. I'm no toad, miss--I know she has that in her soul that can take her out of my level. Were I twenty years younger and a well man I could folly her--but 'tis no use debating now. I'll talk with her this night--" He paused abruptly and turned upon her with piercing inquiry: "Have you discussed this with Ben?" She was beginning to tremble in face of the storm which she foresaw looming before her. "No--I lacked the courage." A faintly bitter smile stirred his upper lip. "Shall I tell him what you have said to me?" "No, no!" she exclaimed, in sudden affright, "I will tell him." "Be sure ye do. As for these editors, I have me own way of dealing with them. I will soon know whether you are right or wrong. Ye're a sick woman, and such, they say, have queer fancies. You admit you're jealous, and I've heard that jealous women are built of hell-fire and vitriol. Anyhow, you've not shaken me faith in me girl--but ye have in Ben, for I know the heart of man. We're all alike when it comes to the question of women." "Please don't misunderstand me--it is to keep them both what they are, good and true, that I come to you--we must not tempt them to evil." "I understand what you say, miss, and I think you're honest, but you may be mistaken. I saw her meet-up with fine young fellies in the East; I could see they admired her--but she turned them down easily. She's no weak-minded chippy, as I know on me own account--the more shame to me." "Of course she turns others down, for the reason that Ben fills her heart." She began to weary of her self-imposed task. He, too, was tired. "We'll see, we'll see," he repeated musingly, and gazed away towards the cloud-enshrouded peaks in sombre silence--the lines of his lips as sorrowful as those of an old lion dying in the desert, arrow-smitten and alone. He had forgotten the hand that pierced his heart.