"I am sorry, but I can tell you--even you--nothing," he replied, and the words came out with a low groan. "I'm glad you think so well of me. It is the only good thing that has come my way in a long time, but you mustn't care for me deeply, very deeply, for that would mar your future. You know what I think of you, but I have no right to mention it. Your father is right in warning you, as I know he has done; he shows it in the strange, half-fearful way he now speaks to me." She averted her face; her eyes were moist; her exquisite lips were quivering like those of a weeping child. "I must go," she murmured. "I am sure they are watching us." "Yes, don't stay." He took up his hoe and began to work as she turned to go. She hesitated and stood still. "The sheriff talks freely to father," she said. "In fact, I think father went over to Dodd's to meet him. I am sorry to have to tell you this, but you might hear it and not understand. Father liked you all along till--" She broke off, at a loss for words sufficiently delicate to express her meaning. "Till the good old man found that I was a menace under his roof," Charles put in, bitterly. "That's what I am, Miss Row--" "Stop!" she suddenly cried out. "Have you lost consideration for my feelings? Am I to count for nothing in this matter? What if you can't reveal everything to me? I don't care. To me you are the soul of honor; to me you are the noblest, most abused man on earth. Charlie, I'll stand by you; I'll go with you if they put you in jail. They can't punish you without punishing me. I've told my father so. My brothers know how I feel. That is why father--as I started to say--is so worried. He doesn't know what to do. He has his pride; he loves me, wants to protect me, and does not know which way to turn." "And there is nothing I can do, as I see it," Charles groaned, leaning on his hoe, his great, famished eyes on hers. "If it would help, I'd gladly kill myself, but my death would prove nothing but my cowardice and confirm them in their suspicions." She stepped back to him. She laid her slender, tapering hand on his arm and looked into his face steadily. "Yes, you are too brave for that," she faltered, giving her proud head a little shake of emphasis. "I've never been afraid of that. You, like myself, were born to suffer, it seems, but we will stand up under it, won't we? Let them all do their worst; it won't kill us, for we love each other, don't we, Charlie?" He lowered his uncovered head; his grim, ashen face was wrung as from deathly pain. "We love each other, don't we, Charlie?" she repeated, entreatingly.