He raised a pair of great, blearing eyes to hers. He started to speak, but his voice hung in his throat. Tightening her clasp on his arm she repeated her demand. “I see through it now,” he found voice to say, huskily. “I don't mean to say Nelson Floyd is afeard o' man, beast, nor devil when it comes to a _just_ encounter, but he knows now that ef me an' him was to come face to face one of us ud have to die, an' he's man enough not to want to kill me in sech a cause. I gave 'im due warnin'. I told 'im the day he drove you to bush-arbor meetin' that ef he tuck advantage o' you I'd kill 'im as shore as God give me the strength. I knowed whar that stormy night was spent, but I refused to believe the wust. I give 'im the benefit o' that doubt, but now since you tell me with your own lips that--” “Oh! Oh! _Oh!_” The cry burst from her lips as if she were in sudden pain. “I don't mean _that_. Why, I'm a _good_ girl, Mr. Baker! I'm a good girl!” Pole leaned over the fence and laid his big, quivering hands on her shoulders. “Thank God!” he gulped, his eyes flashing with joy. “Then I've still got my little sister an' I've got my friend. Thank God! thank God!” Cynthia stood for a moment with hanging head, and then with a deep sigh she turned to go away. He climbed over the fence and caught up with her, the light of a new fear now in his eyes, its fire in his quickened pulse. “I see you ain't never goin' to forgive me in the world fer sayin' what I did,” he said, humbly; “but God knows I wasn't thinkin' wrong o' you. It was him, damn 'im!--his hot-blooded natur', an' a lots o' circumstances that p'inted jest one way. I ain't more'n human, little sister, an' through that I've offended you beyond forgiveness.” “A woman learns to bear a great many things,” Cynthia said. “My mother and others have hardened me so that I scarcely feel what you said as any other pure-minded woman might. Then--then--” She faced him squarely, and her voice rang out sharply. “We don't know--you don't--I don't know whether he is alive or--” Her words failed her, a sob, dry and deep, shook her from head to foot. “Don't curse him as you did just now, Mr. Baker; you may be cursing a dead man who, himself, was only human. But I know what he was--I saw his real and higher nature, and, as it struggled for growth in good and bad soil, it was the most beautiful flower God ever made. He can't be dead--he _must_ not be dead. I--I could not bear that. Do you hear me? Call me what you will for my imprudent conduct with him, but don't admit that bare possibility for one instant--even in your thoughts. Don't do it, I say!”