"You are mad!" she said. "Go—go—I hear them coming!"
"No," says I.
"Oh, go," she pleaded anxiously. "If you stay you will do me no good, and yourself all harm. I think you are bewitched to stay."
With that I looked at her, and though I could not see her very clearly in the small light, I vow she was mightily pretty. I suppose 'twas the devil in me moved me, or maybe 'twas only her beauty; but, at anyrate, said I,—
"If I may have now what I denied myself upon the road there, I will go," said I.
She drew herself straight and I could see her under-lip quiver.
"Sir," she said; "I know you to be a highwayman; at least, let me think you a gentleman."
"Damme!" says I bluntly, for I was taken aback at this. "Damme! no one shall say I am no gentleman, for I am that afore everything else, as I will prove on any buck's body." And so, with a big congee in my stirrups, I turned and left her.