“Only your mother?”
“Only! Let me tell you she may suffer more than you for your behaviour to-night!”
“How can she?”
“If you are caught, will it not be discovered that I helped you to escape?”
“But you said you did not.”
“Yes, I helped you,” Gavin admitted. “My God! what would my congregation say if they knew I had let you pass yourself off as—as my wife?”
He struck his brow, and the Egyptian had the propriety to blush.
“It is not the punishment from men I am afraid of,” Gavin said, bitterly, “but from my conscience. No, that is not true. I do fear exposure, but for my mother’s sake. Look at her; she is happy, because she thinks me good and true; she has had such trials as you cannot know of, and now, when at last I seemed 78 able to do something for her, you destroy her happiness. You have her life in your hands.”
The Egyptian turned her back upon him, and one of her feet tapped angrily on the dry ground. Then, child of impulse as she always was, she flashed an indignant glance at him, and walked quickly down the road.
“Where are you going?” he cried.