"Poor little wandering, hunting lamb," he crooned to me as he laid a tender hand on my bowed head. "Keep watch over her, Lord Jesus," he prayed under his breath and then as suddenly as I had felt the fear I found again my courage. "That cry was woman to man, not child to priest. It is only honest to tell you so," I said, as I suddenly raised my head and threw another gauntlet that I knew would bring on another battle. "I hate myself for it." "I wanted to win you for God and have you come to me then as a gift from Him, but it may have to be the other way round," was the answer he struck out at me with, and as he spoke he clasped my hand in his with a force that seemed to create the great silent, untenanted space around us as it had that night he had sung the Tristan music to me in the moonlight. "I'm going to save you and--and _have_ you." "No, no!" I cried, as I tried to draw my hand away, found it held beyond my effort and then suddenly released. "I knew the first minute I looked into your eyes, but I'll wait," he said softly into the silence around us. "No, no, don't even think such a thing," I exclaimed, and I wanted to rise to my feet and break the spell of that space around us, but I could only cower closer to him on the grass beneath the rustling silver leaves. "I'm going to marry Nickols in a few months and then I'm going out of this world of yours and you can lead them all to--to safety." "No, it's in God's hands. He'll keep you and give you to me when the time comes. It all may mean suffering to us both, probably does, but I accept the cup--in His good time," and as he spoke he looked again into my eyes with a lonely sadness that I could not endure. "I want to get away from you," I gasped and I felt that I must get out of the aloneness with him. "We are in God's hands," he said again, as his warm hands found and held mine. "We must wait on Him with--" Then suddenly the world closed in on us again and we were on our feet--apart. CHAPTER XIV ABIDE WITH ME "Auntie Charlotte, you stole Minister away from us in a no-fair way," stormed Charlotte as she came around the young larches and wild swamp root that had formed the world apart for the dangerous Jaguar and me. "Mother Spurlock can't sing to any good and Sue is so little we gets the key away from her. Let him come right back!" As she made this peremptory demand for the release of my prisoner, my name-daughter stood her ground with her cohorts, who had been scrambling around and over and through the shrubbery, massed behind her. There were Mikey of the red head, small James, the musical wee Susan, Maudie Burns and Jennie Todd, besides several more of the Burns family, a few Sprouls and Paynes and a very ragged young Jones, and they all looked at me with hostile and accusing eyes as Charlotte hurled a final invective at me. "You are wicked and the devil will burn you up," she threatened.