"Why, you see John's a very determined sort of customer. He's never took 'no' for an answer from anybody, and he's got an idea, right or wrong, that a man's will is stronger than a woman's. I thought so, too, till I got to know what a rare will you've got. But there it is in a word; not two days agone I met Johnny, and he said where there was life there was hope." Jane gasped. "That's what be in his head then! That's what made him stop me pretty sharp when I was telling the truth about her?" Jerry nodded. "Very likely it might have been. In fact, he ain't down and out yet--in his own view, anyway. You see, as John said to Lawrence Maynard, and Maynard told me, 'If Dinah ain't got no other man in sight, she's what you may call a free woman still.' And I believe that John be coming round to the opinion that Dinah may yet live to see she was wrong about him." Jane stared and her thoughts reeled. "D'you mean to tell me that a man like my brother could sink to think again of a girl that had jilted him?" she flamed. "Don't you turn on me," protested Jerry. "It ain't my fault men are like that. You know John better than I do. But it wouldn't be contrary to nature if he did want her still. A man in love will stand untold horrors from a woman; and though it may make you, looking on, very shamed for him--still, life's life. And I believe, if John thinks he can get Dinah back, he'll come down off his perch yet and eat as much dirt as she likes to make him." "It's a beastly thought--a beastly thought!" cried Jane. "But he shan't--he never shall have her now if I can prevent it. I'd be a miserable woman if I had to suffer her for a sister-in-law now." Jerry saw danger in this attitude. "I always feel just like you feel," he said, "but for God's love, Jenny, don't you go poking into it. It's a terrible good example of a job where everybody had best to mind their own business. You let John do what he's minded to do. Men in love be parlous items, and if he's still that way, though wounded, then 'tis like a wild tiger a man have fired at and only hurt. He's awful dangerous now, I shouldn't wonder; and if he wants her still and counts to get her, God help anybody who came between. He'd break your neck if you tried to: that I will swear." But Jerry was more perturbed at the vision he had conjured than Jane. For his information she was able to give facts concerning the other side.