"At peril! Oh, my dear girl!"
"Yes, at peril. We do not know what to do, where to turn. You see the great injustice clearly as I do; but you—all men have tried to right it by themselves, in their way, while all women, through all the ages, have stood aside and tried to think they were doing God's will when they accepted—your best; your half best! Now, oh! now something—I think it is God calling loud to them—is waking them up. They know—you cannot do this thing alone; it is their duty, too—they must help you, for, oh!"—Priscilla leaned toward him with tear-blinded eyes and pleading hands—"For the sake of the—the little children of the world. Oh! men are fathers, good fathers, but they have forgotten the part mothers must take! We women cannot leave it all to you. It is wicked, wicked for women to try! There is something mightier than our love—we are learning that!"
Travers took her in his arms. She was weeping miserably. His heart yearned over her, for he feared she was feeling, as women sometimes did, the awful weight of injustice men had unconsciously, often in deepest love, laid upon them.
"Priscilla, you trust me; trust my love?"
"Yes."
"You believe me when I say that I see this—as you do—but that we only differ as to methods?"
"I—I hope I see that and believe it."
"Then"—and here Travers did his poor, blind part to lay another straw upon the drift of burden—"leave this—to me. I know better than you do the end of any such mad course as you, in your affection and sense of wrong, might take. Little girl, let me try to show you. Suppose you went to Margaret Moffatt. You know her proud, sensitive nature; her loyalty and absolute frankness. After the shock and torture she would go to her father with the truth—for she would believe you—and announce her unwillingness—I am sure, even though her heart broke, she would do this—to marry Huntter. Then the matter would lie among men; men with the traditional viewpoint; men with much, much at stake. If Huntter has, as you say, taken the chance, in his love for Margaret—and he does love her, poor devil!—he will defend himself and his position."
"How?" Priscilla was regaining her calm; she raised her head and faced Travers from the circle of his arms.
"He will—send Moffatt to—to—Hapgood."