"But," she went on, gently pushing away the hands he was stretching out to her--"but still in my heart there would have been sunshine; because I could have thought of Lawrence Lee as an honourable man, and not as a traitor. What would Madam Lee think of you, Lawrence, if she knew this that I know?" "Hush!" he murmured, closing his eyes and knitting his brows. "And your father," she went on; "he was of no such poor flimsy stuff. He died for his king; true to the death." "He believed in him," said Lawrence. "For my part--well, I speak as I hear, Ruth. His worst enemies never denied Charles the First had his good points; but the best friends of Charles the Second say 'tis difficult to find his; and as for his faults, he's as full of them as--" "As you are, or any other mortal man. Come, tell me, you silly boy, you, do you think that if these gentlemen--these fine 'friends' of yours, who want to be rid, as you call it, of His Majesty--were ruling England in his place, the country would fare happier? For my part," went on Ruth, when no response from Lawrence appeared to be forthcoming, "I doubt my father would make a rare stern tyrant. And as for you, Lawrence--" but something in this notion suddenly upset all Ruth's sober eloquence, and it rippled away in a peal of merry laughter. "I see nothing ludicrous in it," said Lawrence grimly. "No indeed," said Ruth, regaining her gravity, "'tis no laughing matter." "Come, Ruth, if you have quite done your sermonizing, let us part friends at least." "That is at an end," she said, settling her disarranged hood, and, drawing the handles of her basket well up to her elbow, she turned her face homewards. "But you were going to the Hall?" he said. [Sidenote: Parting in sorrow.] "I was," she replied; "but I cannot face Madam Lee and think what you have become. Fare you well, Lawrence!" "Ah, silly child! what should you know about politics? This comes, now, of meddling in things you don't understand," he said fractiously "'Tis not I who have meddled with them," she said; "and I would give my gold and garnet brooch they had not come within a hundred miles of Stanstead." "Psha! Go your foolish, obstinate ways, then, Ruth. Stay, first give me the basket." "Give it you? Well, well," she went on; "now I think of it, 'tis yours, I suppose. For old Diggory, your gardener, brought it over last week full of early potatoes--a present for father from Madam Lee. So take it, if you'll be troubled with it;" and, first extracting its contents, she handed it to Lee. He dashed it furiously into the stream, sending the terrified sheep stampeding in all directions. "This is too much," he said; "'twas the weapon I meant." "That is not mine to give; and were it mine a million times over, I would not give it you. The deadly hateful thing; unless--" and taking it by its short handle, she laid its point to her heart.