The little old lady stood enveloped in his big shadow, with his hairy, villainous face close by hers. She did not shrink, nor scream, nor faint, but stood up, deadly pale, with her limpid eyes fixed upon him. ‘I am not afraid of you,’ she said, with a little gasp. ‘Will you keep your word and go away?’ Some sentiment, unknown and inexplainable, came into the ruffian’s heart. He loosed his grip of the delicate little hand that felt like nothing in his grasp, which he could have crushed to a jelly: and indeed he had nearly done so. He said, ‘I will; I’ll keep my word,’ in a deep growling bass voice. It was all that Mrs. Sandford could do to unclasp the fingers he had gripped, and to keep from crying with the pain. She dropped the sovereign into his hand. ‘Now go,’ she said. ‘You _are_ game,’ he cried, with a sort of admiration, looking at her rather than the sovereign, though his hand closed upon that with the eagerness of a famished beast upon a bone. ‘I never saw one as was more game.’ She made a gesture of dismissal with her cramped fingers. ‘Oh, go, go--and God forgive you. And oh! try to get honest work, and live decent--and not fall into trouble again.’ ‘Good-bye, lady,’ he said; then coming back a step--‘I’m sorry I hurt you.’ She waved to him to go away. The man still lingered a moment, putting up his hand to his cap, then turned, and, slouching, with his shoulders up to his ears, took the way across the corner of the moor to the railway-station, which was a mile off or more. Mrs. Sandford turned to go back to her house. She was so pale that when she came near the door of the shop Mrs. Box came running out to her in alarm. ‘Oh, Mrs. Sandford, come in, ma’am; come in and rest a bit. You’ve not a bit of colour on your cheeks--you that have such a fine complexion. You’re just dead with fright, and I don’t wonder at it. How did he dare to speak to you, the villain? and shook your nerves, poor dear, so that I see you can’t speak.’ ‘Oh! yes, I can speak,’ said the old lady. Her knees were knocking under her, her whole little person in a tremble. ‘I was glad to speak to him, poor creature. He wanted some one that used to live here by. Perhaps a person like that, who does really wicked things, may not be worse, in the sight of God, than many a man who makes a fair show to the world.’ She said this with many a catch of her breath and pause between the words. She was very much overdone, as anyone could see, but she would not sit down. ‘If you’ll give me a little milk, or some water, to revive me, I’ll be quite right in a minute,’ she said.