"Sure!" Jack swore a great oath. "I wish I were as sure of getting into heaven. Tera is a child--cunning in some things, simple in others. She might deceive you: she could not hoodwink me. No, no, my lass, Tera is square enough. I wouldn't marry her else. You don't suppose I'd take a long-haired mate with a murder on her hands!"
"Then if this is true, how am I to save Herbert?" cried Rachel, in despair. "He did not kill the girl."
"Perhaps not. Slade says he did not. But Mayne has done a good many dirty things. I wouldn't marry him, Rachel, if I were you. He is a skunk, if ever there was one."
"Don't you dare to call him names," flashed out Rachel; "the poor soul lies sick unto death. 'Judge not, lest you be judged,' Jack. I love Herbert, and I intend to marry him. If he is bad, I will reform him. I shall pluck him as a brand from the burning. This is not the time to give up the man I love, when he is in sore distress and in need of a helping hand."
"What will your father say, Rachel?"
"My father, unfortunately, is not consistent in his Christianity," replied the girl, in rather a Pharisaical manner. "He thinks over much of worldly vanities; of what people say of him and his. A woman shall leave father and mother to follow after the husband of her choice. Herbert is my choice, and in spite of my father's anger, I will marry him. We shall not stay here to be mocked and despised. Herbert will sell his farm, I have some money of my mother's, and together we will go to America. There we will lead a new and more devout life; and he shall atone for his sin."
Seeing it was futile, her cousin ceased to argue with her.
"I only hope you will not live to repent it, Rachel," said he. "If Mayne has a spark of manhood in him, he'll act square by you. But about this money you gave to Tera. I could not, of course, bring it with me to-day, but I have it safe on board, and you shall have it back to-morrow."
"No, Jack, you need not do that. I am willing to lend you the money, if it is to help you on in life. Repay it to me when you can."
"That's good hearing, Rachel," said Finland, grasping her hand. "I promise you shall have the money, and interest with it, in a year or two. I'm not the man to go back on my word."