She went over to the couch, took up the child, and began to tuck about him the folds of her enveloping blanket. Raven moved to her side. He had an overwhelming sense of their being at one in the power of their resolution. If she would yield to his deliberate judgment! if only their resolutions could coincide! "No," he said, "you're not going down there. I won't have it." She looked at him and faintly smiled. "I've got to," she said. "If I stay away all night an' he don't know where, there wouldn't be any way o' piecin' on." And suddenly he knew, if she was to persist in "piecing on," she was right. "Wait," he said. "Let me think." There must be some way, he reflected, some means, by violence or diplomacy, to help her fulfill the outer rites of her bargain until he could persuade her to be taken beyond the reach of persecution. He wanted to fight for her; but if that was not the way, if his fists would only bruise her as well as Tenney, he was ready to lie. He had his idea. It might be good, it might not, but it was an emergency idea. "I'll go down," he said. "I'll go over to your house and offer to pay him for his week's work. You follow. Give me time enough to go into my house on the way and get some money. Then you come while I'm talking to him and I'll stay a bit, as long as I can. When you come, we can see how he is. If he's violent to you--if he looks it, even--you've got to come away." "Oh, no," she cried sharply, "I can't do that. You must see I can't." "I'll take you to my house," he said. "You know Charlotte. She'll be nice to you. Why, if Charlotte found out a thing like this was going on in the neighborhood, she'd go for him tooth and nail." "No," said she, in a dull decision. "I can't. It would all come on you." He understood. The madman would drag him into that range of jealous fury and because he was a man. "I can look out for myself," he said roughly, "and you, too." Again she shook her head. "No," she said, "he might kill you. Anyways, he'd burn your barn." "He won't kill me," said Raven, "and I don't care a hang about my barn. Let him burn. Good thing. I'll clap him into jail and you'll know where he is. Now!" He looked at the clock on the mantel. "I'm going. In just twenty minutes you start and come along as fast as you want to. I'll be at your house." She had begun to speak, but he paid no attention. He turned up his collar and stepped out into the storm. "Lock the door," he called back to her. "Keep it locked till you go."