"A nail fresh made from bar iron—one that has never touched ground. Drive such in the threshold of a witch's door and for a day and night she cannot hurt a fly."
"Really, John Lee, I could blush for you—here at the beginning of the nineteenth century, in these dazzling days of enlightenment!"
"I got 'em from Noah Newcombe, hot off his anvil," said John, "and I've driven them home into the dern of grandmother's door. Believe it or not, I very well know she's harmless to all mankind this day."
"I wish I had such faith in men as you have in nails, John," said the girl thoughtfully. Then silence fell between them, and Grace reflected upon her sweetheart's credulity. She had never realised the extent of it until recent events and the intercourse with the American prisoner. Peter Norcot's manifold ingenuities and petty cleverness of quips and cranks had but served to make John Lee's simplicity shine bright by contrast; but the light that Stark cast over thought was a white light, and smote pitiless upon both the others.
"You have faith in one man sure?" said John presently. He had thought of her words long before replying to them.
"In two—in two," she answered hastily; but more she would not say.
"'Tis old Kekewich and me," he mused aloud. "A very strange thing, my lady dear, that two such men should get to be trusted by your sweet spirit, afore all the rest of the world."
But she could not let him remain in ignorance.
"I meant Mr. Stark, not Kek," she answered.
He nodded and looked away.