"Work! Broom-Squiress, one such as you should not work. You missed your vocation altogether when you left the Ship. Jonas told me you had been there." "I was happy then." "But are you not so in the Punch-Bowl?" "No. I am very miserable. But I will not return there again." "What! fallen out with the Squire?" "He has made it impossible for me to go back." "Then whither are you bound?" "I do not know." He looked at her intently. "Now, see here," said he. "Sit down on that log again from which you have risen and tell me all. I am a lawyer and can help you, I daresay." "I have not much to tell," she answered, and sank on the tree bole. He seated himself beside her. "There are things that have happened which have made me resolve to go anywhere, do anything, rather than return to Jonas. I promised what I could not keep when I said I would love, honor, and obey him." Then she began to sob. It touched her that this young man should express sympathy, offer his help. "Now listen to me," said Mr. Markham; "I am a barrister. I know the law, I have it at my ringers' ends, and I place myself, my knowledge and my abilities at your disposal. I shall feel proud, flattered to do so. Your beauty and your distress appeal to me irresistibly. Has the Squire been beating you?" "Oh, no, not that." "Then what has he done?" "There are things worse to bear than a stick." "What! Oh, the gay Lothario! He has been casting his eye about and has lost his leathery heart to some less well-favored wench than yourself." Mehetabel moved further from him on the tree-bole. He began picking at the great lichen that grew out of the decaying tree, and laughed. "Have I hit it? Jealous, eh? Jealousy is at the bottom of it all. By Jove, the Broom-Squire isn't worth expending a jealous thought on. He's a poor sordid creature. Not worthy of you. So jealous, my little woman, eh?" Mehetabel turned and looked steadily at him. "You do not understand me," she said. "No Jonas has not sunk so low as that." "He would have been a fool to have cast aside a jewel for the sake of quartz crystal," laughed Markham. "But, come. A lawyer is a confessor. Tell me everything. Make no reservations. Open your heart to me, and see if the law, or myself--between us we cannot assist you." Mehetabel hesitated. The manner in which the man offered his services was offensive, and yet in her innocent mind she thought that perhaps the fault lay in herself in not understanding and receiving his address in the way in which it was intended. Besides, in what other manner could she obtain relief? Every other means was taken from her. Slowly, reluctantly, she told him much that she had not told to any one else--only not that Jonas had endeavored to kill the child. That she would not relate.