"No, indeed," said I, perplexed as to what she would be at; "it was the first thought I had of her."
"Then the more blame to you," she cried, and speech rushed out of her in a passion. "What is it that you're seeking of her—you that's hunted, with a price on your head? What is it? what is it?" And she stretched out her great arms on either side of her as though to make a barrier against myself. "Ah, if I were sure it would bring no harm on her, you should have the soldiers on your heels to-morrow. Many and many's the time I've been tempted to it when I've spied you in the orchard or on the lake. I have been sore tempted to it—sore tempted! What is it you want of her? It's the brother's clothes you are wearing, but is it the brother's heart beneath them?"
"Good God, woman!" I cried, dumfounded by her words.
She stood in the dusk before me, her grotesque figure dignified out of all knowledge by the greatness of her love for Dorothy. The very audacity of her words was a convincing evidence of that, and at the sight of her the anger died out of my heart. If she accused me unjustly, why, it was to protect Dorothy, and that made amends for all. Nay, I could almost thank her for the accusation, and I answered very humbly—
"I am like to get little good in my life, but may I get less when that is done if ever I had a thought which could disparage her."
"And how will I be sure of that?" asked Mary Tyson.
"Because I love her," said I.
An older man would have made, and a more experienced woman would have preferred, perhaps, a different answer; but I suppose she gauged it by the depth of her own affection. It struck root in a responsive soil.
"Ay, and how could you help it!" she cried, with a little note of triumph in her voice. But the voice in an instant deadened with anxiety. "You will have told her?"
"Not a syllable," says I. "I am, as you say, a man with a price on his head. I may be mated with an axe, but it is the only mate that I can come by."