She could not resist the appeal. Tears were gathering in her eyes; they were the first Wade had seen in any eyes for a long time, and his own heart was touched. She opened her innocent life before him and told him all she knew. The women folks, however, did not know nearly so much as they often prided themselves as knowing. She believed he ought to know, more especially since the incident with Al Thompson, because it would be a sort of protection to him. He would know what to look for and how to bear himself. "They aint a-goin' ter hurt ye, ef I can help ye," she said, sobbingly. He understood her feelings perfectly well, and determined there on the wild mountainside, in the presence of the rugged hills and within sound of the running waters, to protect and aid this unopened wild flower of the mountain so long as he had power to do so, so long as this power lasted--so long as he had breath in his lungs. This vow he faithfully kept. Men do things very often during life for which they are very sorry, do things which, in more conservative moments, bring on pangs of regret; but Jack Wade felt not the least regret because he had knocked down Al Thompson. He did not regret that act, but a tinge of sorrow and shame ran through his soul as he looked upon the crimson face of his gentle companion. The advantage he had taken in her moment of weakness would, no doubt, stand him well in fulfilling the purpose for which he had quit a life of plenty,--a life of sociality, and had come to the lonesome hills to live in a cabin all alone to carry out. The burden of it all was burning his own soul and gnawing at the very vitals of the life within him. He was a man through and through, a man who could have gained the topmost heights of the most elevated, elaborate society, but he had sought instead the quiet life of the farmer, a life alone in a cabin away toward the hills of Kentucky, far from civilization. Beside him rode in perfect silence, broken only by the sound of the horses' feet falling upon the dirt, a child of the wilds, whose own heart burned her bosom, that heart which had in an unguarded moment unloaded all that was most sacred to her and to her own people, all that had been held dear to one who had been taught in only one way. She felt sorrowful, but that same power which bound her when Jack Wade was away kept her silent when he was near. The rocks of the rugged mountain ridge pointed to her as she passed, the little yellow wild flowers bowed their sweet heads in shame when her skirts touched them. She would not look at them, their beauty had in a moment flown. She would not look over the wild mountain scenery; its picturesqueness had departed. A dead shade rested over everything. She would not even glance up at the strong man at her side for fear his powerful gaze might pierce her heart as an arrow shot out from a strong arm. But why all this sorrow? He knew, he understood, and was silent. He