The human heart is full of strange caprices, and is wayward as a spoiled child. The very fact that the whole country side was combined to condemn Anthony made Urith in heart exculpate him--that every mouth blamed him made her excuse him. It was true that he had acted with audacious folly, but there was merit in that audacity. What other youth would have ventured into the churchyard on such a night? The audacity so qualified the folly as almost to obliterate it. He had been challenged to the venture. Would it have been manly had he declined the challenge? Did not the blame attach to such as had dared him to the reckless deed? She repeated to herself the words that had been spoken in her mother's house about him, so extravagant in expression, exaggerated in judgment as to transcend justice, and her heart revolted against the extravagance and forgave him. If all the world stood up in condemnation, yet would not she. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled. She recalled his chivalry towards her on the moor; she heard again his voice; recollected how he had held her in his arms; she felt again the throb of his heart, heard his breathing as he strode with her through the flames, as he wrestled with her for the mastery; and she laughed aloud, she rejoiced that he had conquered. Had she overmastered him, and her will had been submitted to by him, she would have despised him. Because he was so strong in his resolution, so determined in carrying it out, she liked and respected him. There flashed before her something like lightning--it was his eyes, lifted to hers, with that strange look that sent a thrill through all her veins and tingled in her extremities. That look of his had revealed to her something to which she dare not give a name, a something which gave him a right to demand of her that morning testimony to his integrity of purpose, a something that constrained her, without a thought of resistance, to give him what he asked, first her hand in witness that she believed him, then the bunch of flowers in token that she accepted him as her knight. As her knight? Her heart bounded with pride and exultation at the thought! He her knight! He, the noblest youth in all the region round, a very Saul, taller by the head and shoulders than any other, incomparably handsome, more manly, open, generous, brave--brave! who feared neither man nor midnight spectre. Yet--when Julian Crymes had charged her with attempting to rob her of her lover, she, Urith, had repelled the charge, and had declared that she did not value, did not want him. Nor had she then; but the very violence, the defiance of Julian, had forced her to think of him--to think of him in the light of a lover. The opposition of Julian had been the steel stroke on her flinty heart that had brought out the spark of fire. If anything had been required to fan this spark into flame, that had been supplied by the chattering, censorious swarm of visitors that afternoon. And Anthony? How stood he?