“Ah! I misdoubt she’s worth no more than the clothes she stands in.” “If I give you money, will you honestly do the last duties by the dead here?” “Aye, that will I.” “So that, if I procure the maid an asylum, she may feel happy that her grandfather will be laid decently to earth?” “Aye, aye.” She held out an eager hand; let those who have starved in a bitter winter call it a covetous one. She fingered each of the gold pieces as if it were a fairy flower of her imagination. Tuke returned softly to the girl, who had never changed her position. He put his arm gently about her waist. “Betty--I tell you to come with me.” “No, no!” Her voice shivered up, all drowned and bewildered. “You must come, dear. This is no longer a place for you. I will arrange all matters necessary about--about him there, and I will take you into my service.” She only lowered her head deeper, and gave out a miserable sigh. “You are forlorn and alone in the world, Betty. You would have to exchange your independence for a wretched drudgery.” At that she looked up at last, and put her hair from her wild eyes and wet cheeks. “I should be honest,” she whispered. “They could not be cruel to blame me even if I starved. Why should I help you to a lie and myself to misery?” “To a lie, Betty?” She flashed round on him quite suddenly. “What is the sort of service you offer me?” she cried. He did not answer. Irresistibly impassioned, he seized her fiercely in his arms. The woman had gone out and for the moment they were alone. “Betty, you shall come! I will try to be fair with you. If you have fought against this, so have I.” “Hush, hush!” she cried pitifully. “Oh! think of him there!” “He offered you to me for a price. I curse myself for telling you this now; but I must have you by fair means or foul.” She fell against him, weeping heavily, while he held her. “Oh, for shame!” she gasped, “that I should be put up to be bid for in my innocence! What brutes are men!” “I won’t gainsay you. But, Betty, am I to live on in my warm house and know her cold and hungry that all my soul longs to?” “Don’t!--oh, don’t talk to me like that!” “Give me your lips, wench. Come! I will have them. By this and this, Betty, through every fibre of your sweetness I love and claim you.” “Oh, what am I to do?” “As I bid you, girl.” He had out his handkerchief and wiped her eyes, and he smoothed her roughened hair and kissed her again into servility. Then he led her unresisting towards the door; and there was Jim mounting guard. “Jim,” he said--“Missy Pollack is coming home with me. Go and find my man and bid him lead the horses thitherwards to some place where we can mount in quiet.” The fellow sped away, and Tuke, leaving the girl by the barn-door, walked across to the doctor who was withdrawn with his friends to a little distance. “Dr. Harmsworth, the pleasure of a word with you, sir.” The other detached himself from the group and joined him.