"Who are you?"
"O, that don't matter! I was going to say that if I hadn't been in love with your blue eyes once I wouldn't have taken the trouble to come forty miles to get you to write this letter. I was only a mile away from Brother Goodwin, as you call him, when I heard that you had victimized him. I could have sent him a note. I came over here to save you from the ruin you deserve. I would have told him more than the people in Pennsylvania ever knew. Come, my dear, scribble away as I say, or I will tell him and everybody else what will take the music out of your love-feast speeches in all this country."
With a tremulous hand Ann Eliza wrote, reflecting that she could send another note after this and tell Brother Goodwin that a highwayman who entertained an insane love for her had met her in a lonely spot and extorted this from her. She handed the note to Pinkey.
"Now, Ann Eliza, you'd better ask God to forgive this sin, too. You may pray and shout till you die. I'll never say anything—unless you open communication with preacher Goodwin again. Do that, and I'll blow you sky-high."
"You are cruel, and wicked, and mean, and—"
"Come, Ann Eliza, you used to call me sweeter names than that, and you don't look half so fascinating when you're mad as when you are talking heavenly. Good by, Miss Meacham." And with that Pinkey went into a thicket and brought forth his own horse and rode away, not on the road but through the woods.
If Ann Eliza could have guessed which one of her many lovers this might be she would have set about forming some plan for circumventing him. But the mystery was too much for her. She sincerely loved Morton, and the bitter cup she had given to others had now come back to her own lips. And with it came a little humility. She could not again forget her early sins so totally. She looked to see them start out of the bushes by the wayside at her.
After this recital it is not necessary that I should tell you what Lewis Goodwin told his brother that night as they strolled in the woods.
At midnight Lewis left home, where he could not stay longer with safety. The war with Great Britain had broken out and he joined the army at Chillicothe under his own name, which was his best disguise. He was wounded at Lundy's Lane, and wrote home that he was trying to wipe the stain off his name. He afterward moved West and led an honest life, but the memory of his wild youth never ceased to give him pain. Indeed nothing is so dangerous to a reformed sinner as forgetfulness.