"Darrel would tell me that I am at last in harmony with a great law which, until now, I have been defying. It is true; I have thought too much of my own desires."
"I do not understand you," said Polly. "Now, we heard of the shot and iron—how you came by them and how, one night, you threw them into the river at Hillsborough. That led, perhaps, to most of your trouble. I'd like to know what moral law you were breaking when you flung them into the river?"
"A great law," Trove answered; "but one hard to phrase."
"Suppose you try."
"The innocent shall have no fear," said he. "Until then I had kept the commandment."
There was a little time of silence.
"If you watch a coward, you'll see a most unhappy creature." It was Trove who spoke. "Darrel said once, 'A coward is the prey of all evil and the mark of thunderbolts.'"
"I'll not admit you're a coward," were the words of Polly.
"Well," said he, rising, "I had fear of only one thing,—that I should lose your love."
Reaching home next day, Trove found that Allen had sold Phyllis.
The mare had been shipped away.