"That has something to do with it. You have made me think. You don't regard me as a spoiled child; you seem to believe that I have a mind. And that, even if you were a field hand, would cause me to be interested in you. I would like to talk with you seriously, but you joke with me." "To hear you in a serious mood would be as sweet as an anthem." "You must not talk that way. I want your friendship." "You shall have it." "I need your help." "You shall have it." "I don't want to be wicked," she said, looking up at him, "but I beg of you not to sign that petition to the Court, until--" "Until when?" "Until Zeb Sawyer is--is--out of the way. People flatter me and praise me, but they don't know what I have suffered. And my father doesn't understand me. When you called Sawyer a coward I wanted to shout in the street." "Still you consented to marry him." "Yes, to live for a little longer in peace. But I know a tall rock over on the creek, and from the top of it is a long way to the cruel boulders below. They call it 'Lover's Leap,' and I have thought after awhile the name might be changed to 'Despair's Leap.' At night I have dreamed of that rock, and sometimes my dream would continue after I opened my eyes. Our engagement was for one year, and often I said to myself that I had but one year longer to live. At church I would pray, and I could hear the words, 'Children, obey your parents.' And then I would go home and pretend to be happy in that obedience." "But you signed the petition." "Yes, with a prayer that you would not sign it." "And I won't." "Not even if they should come with pistols?" "Not if they should come with a mob and a rope." She looked up at him, with her hands clasped in her lap. The light fell upon her face, and in its human loveliness was the divine spirit of sadness. Lyman looked upward at the fleece among the stars, the lace curtain of the night. "With the strength accidentally dedicated to me by a body of men assembled to break the customs of a class opposed to them, I will hold you a prisoner, free from the grasp of a feelingless clown," he said. "I will protect you. And when you have really fallen in love, and believe that your happiness depends upon a man, I will sign the petition." With the frankness of a child she sprung from the seat and grasped his hand: "Oh, you stand between me and the tall rock," she said. "Good night--God bless you." She ran away. Lyman looked after her, with dim vision--her white gown spectral in the misty light. CHAPTER XII. WANTED TO DREAM.