"Then we will talk of love instead—of our love, Sophie."
"Alas, that way too lies sorrow! Lucius, what is the end to be? My father would kill me if he knew."
"Does he hate me so?"
She nodded, with the look of dumb fear in her eyes that thought of the Squire always brought there.
"Dear heart, we will change his hate to love. There is a way—if you will trust me and obey me."
A tremor of exquisite delight thrilled through her at the words. She had no arts of allurement, no strength of will to make her play the coquette with him, and she was unable, for the purpose of leading him on and tantalizing him to fresh excitement, to deny herself the joy of being his slave.
"Obey you!" she said, slipping a little lower on her rock so that her back-tilted head lay against his knee as she looked up at him, "I am yours for you to do with as you will."
Stooping, he kissed the swelling curve of her throat, and privately marvelled at her for being such a fool.
"Sweetheart," he began softly, "we will call in the aid of higher powers than our own. You know my mother was a Scotswoman, and she had the second sight, like your old Madgy Figgy of the Men-an-tol. She was learned in all kinds of charms, too. Well I remember as a child seeing her staunch the flow of blood from an old servant by crossing two charmed sticks from the hearth over him and saying a charm."
"It was Madgy Figgy who told about my ladder," Sophie said, "she has many charms, I know. She carries the water from St. Annan's spring to the church whenever there's to be a christening. No one baptized in water from St. Annan's spring can die by hanging, every one knows that. Was your mother as learned in charms as old Madgy?"