But Bob, who evidently harbored a distrust in amazing disproportion to his small size and his tender years, was proof against even so enchanting a siren. He merely knitted his limited eyebrows in perplexity because of the unexpected nature of the attack, for that unhappy and striking developments were to ensue he did not permit himself to disbelieve for an instant. He left his hand in hers, for his theory that least resistance resulted in the minimum smart had been proved often enough to commend it. A short little puff of breath—in an adult it might have been called a sigh—escaped from his half-parted lips, and betokened suspense. “How ye all mus’ hev treated him up on the mounting!” Marcella exclaimed, flashing her angry eyes upward at Teck Jepson. “He’s ’feard—an’ jes’ see the leetle size of him! He’s ’feard; he wouldn’t dodge that-a-way ef he hedn’t been hit a heap o’ times fur nuthin’. Who treats him so mean?” Jepson hesitated. Certainly he owed naught to Mrs. Bowles, but they had been of the same household, and he had a reluctance to expose her to scorn and contumely, however richly merited. Marcella noted his hesitation and broke forth impulsively, “I don’t wonder ye look ’shamed of it.” He shifted his position suddenly, and as he gazed at her, still leaning on the rifle, his eyes widely open, his lips parted, his breath coming quick, it might have seemed that he had need of his weapon to uphold him,—he was shaken as if by a blow. “Marcelly!” he exclaimed,—and the voice hardly seemed his, so unlike was the husky quaver to his wonted full, mellow tones,—“kin ye think that o’ me,—ez ’twar me ez hev persecuted that thar leetle bit of a critter?” He paused and looked about him with an air of finality. His nerves were still distraught; his lip quivered. She sat, a little pale and shaken by the sight of his agitation, gazing up at him from under her eyebrows, and hardly lifting her head, expectant, waiting, but making no sign of denial. “Waal,” he said, drawing himself to his full height, “this finishes it. I hev b’lieved, I hev lived in hope ez some day ye mought kem ter keer fur me, ’spite o’ all that hev kem an’ gone. But now ez I hev fund out how awful mean ye think I be, ez ye kin b’lieve fur one minnit ez I hed enny hand in tormentin’ a leetle trembly soul like that, I’ll gin hope up. I’ll trouble ye with my feelin’s no mo’. An’ I’ll never furgive ye whilst I live!” Marcella sat quite still and with downcast eyes during this outburst. There was something very like a sob in his throat as he spoke the last words, but when she glanced up again his face was so calm, his gaze so loftily discursive as he cast his eyes over the landscape, his attitude so impressive and striking, that she interpreted this serenity of pride as triumph, and she suddenly felt a goad in his last avowal.