"My Jane would ha' done likewise," he cried in triumph. "She would that, Johnny—she would!"
"But this is different!" groaned Aldous. "What am I going to do, Mac? What can I do? Don't you see how impossible it is! Mac, Mac—she isn't my wife—not entirely, not absolutely, not in the last and vital sense of being a wife by law! If she knew the truth, she wouldn't consider herself my wife; she would leave me. For that reason I can't take her. I can't. Think what it would mean!"
Old Donald had come close to his side, and at the look in the gray old mountaineer's face John Aldous paused. Slowly Donald laid his hands on his shoulders.
"Johnny," he said gently, "Johnny, be you sure of yourself? Be you a man, Johnny?"
"Good heaven, Donald. You mean——"
Their eyes met steadily.
"If you are, Johnny," went on MacDonald in a low voice, "I'd take her with me. An' if you ain't, I'd leave these mount'ins to-night an' never look in her sweet face again as long as I lived."
"You'd take her along?" demanded Aldous eagerly.
"I would. I've been thinkin' it over to-night. An' something seemed to tell me we mustn't dare leave her here alone. There's just two things to do, Johnny. You've got to stay with her an' let me go on alone or—you've got to take her."
Slowly Aldous shook his head. He looked at his watch. It was a little after ten.