"Mightn't you help the lady more if you went away now, and came back?" he urged. The deserter's argument, time without end! Was I to fall as low as that? Phillida's voice called to Vere from the veranda, summoning him to some need of farm or household. "In a moment, Pretty," he called assent. But he did not move. I guessed that he hoped much from my silence and would not disturb me lest my decision be hindered or changed. By and by I stood up. "Vere, in your varied experiences in peace and war, did you ever chance to meet a coward?" "Once," he answered briefly. "And, did you like the sight?" "No." "Then," I said, "let us not invite one another to that display. Shall we go in to Phillida?" CHAPTER XVII "They say-- What say they? Let thame say!" --OLD SCOTTISH INSCRIPTION. After luncheon, I drove over to the village with Phillida, who had some housewifely orders to give at the shops. On second thoughts, Vere and I had agreed to tell her nothing about the venture we planned for tonight. We had satisfied her by the assurance that I meant to start for New York before the dangerous hours after midnight. Reassured, she regained her usual spirits with the buoyancy of her few years and healthy nerves. I gathered her secret belief was that no "ghost" would dare face Ethan. Which may have been quite true! On our way home, we stopped at the shop of Mrs. Hill to add to our supply of eggs, Phillida's hens having unaccountably failed to supply their quota. I went in, leaving my companion in the car. No one else was in the shop. An impulse prompted me to put a question to the little woman whose life had been spent in this neighborhood. "Mrs. Hill, did you ever hear of anyone named Desire Michell?" I asked. She stopped counting eggs and blinked up at me. Her sallow, wrinkled face lightened with curiosity and an absurd primness. "Now, Mr. Locke! I'd like to know where a young city feller like you got that old story from?" "I have not got it. I want you to tell it to me. She was a witch?" "She was a hussy," said Mrs. Hill severely. "I was a little girl when she ran away from her father's respectable house, fifty-odd years ago. The disgrace killed him, being a clergyman. An' the gossip that came back, later, an' pictures of her in such dresses! Dear! Dear! The wicked certainly have opportunities." "Fifty years ago!" I echoed, dazed by this intrusion of a third Desire Michell. "Ah! Nearly seventy she'd be if she was alive today; which she ain't. Why, she changed her name to one fancier that you might have heard talk of? She was----" The name she gave me I shall not set down. It is enough to say it was that of a super-woman whose beauty, genius and absolute lack of conscience set Europe ablaze for a while. A torch of womanhood, quenched at the highest-burning hour of her career by a sudden and violent death.