"No--that won't happen. She's safe for to-day. You'll laugh, but you know there's force in the old charms for all your laughing. They work, though wiseacres may know better." "John, John!" "A maiden nail has power, I tell you, despite all scoffing." "A maiden nail! And what is that?" "A nail fresh made from bar iron--one that has never touched ground. Drive such in the threshold of a witch's door and for a day and night she cannot hurt a fly." "Really, John Lee, I could blush for you--here at the beginning of the nineteenth century, in these dazzling days of enlightenment!" "I got 'em from Noah Newcombe, hot off his anvil," said John, "and I've driven them home into the dern of grandmother's door. Believe it or not, I very well know she's harmless to all mankind this day." "I wish I had such faith in men as you have in nails, John," said the girl thoughtfully. Then silence fell between them, and Grace reflected upon her sweetheart's credulity. She had never realised the extent of it until recent events and the intercourse with the American prisoner. Peter Norcot's manifold ingenuities and petty cleverness of quips and cranks had but served to make John Lee's simplicity shine bright by contrast; but the light that Stark cast over thought was a white light, and smote pitiless upon both the others. "You have faith in one man sure?" said John presently. He had thought of her words long before replying to them. "In two--in two," she answered hastily; but more she would not say. "'Tis old Kekewich and me," he mused aloud. "A very strange thing, my lady dear, that two such men should get to be trusted by your sweet spirit, afore all the rest of the world." But she could not let him remain in ignorance. "I meant Mr. Stark, not Kek," she answered. He nodded and looked away. "I know you meant him. 'Twas only to see if you'd tell me, that I pretended you meant Kek. A sly thing to do, but somehow I was tempted." She did not answer, nor did he speak again until they reached the ruin in Hangman's Hollow. "Here we are at last--a queer sort of place. 'Twould call for little fancy to see my grandmother meeting the Devil himself here after dark. 'Pon that rowan above the gravel-pit a man hanged himself a little while back, 'cause he found he'd been cheated over a horse. Here, under our feet, is granny's den. We'll dismount, tether up; an' then you follow me down this blind alley-way to the top of the mound. By the wall-side at the end, is a stone that will turn when we set foot upon it, and open a hole down the blowing-house chimney into a great chamber underground." Grace dismounted; John fastened up their horses and soon led the way whither Lovey Lee had vanished. "But 'twas no miracle after all, you see. There--the stone twists on a regular pivot. 'Tis balanced beneath like a logan."