"It is more than you can think," I answered, eagerly. "When I saw that look of sympathy on your face when I stood in the pillory at Falmouth it made everything easier to bear. Besides, you say you will stay at Pennington, and I look upon Pennington as my home."
"Yes; but surely you will not stay here. It cannot be right for a man to idle away his time as you are idling it; besides, you can never win back Pennington thus. If I were you I would find work, and I would honourably make my way back to fortune."
"But the Tresidders will not allow me," I replied, stung into shame by her words, "they have always put obstacles in my path."
"Then I would go where the Tresidders could not harm me," she cried, and then she went away, as though I were the merest commonplace stranger, as indeed I was.
I mused afterward that she did not even tell me her name, although she had no means of knowing that I had found it out, neither did she tell me that she would keep the secret of my hiding-place from my enemies. And more than all this, she bade me leave St. Eve, where I should be away from her, although my longings grew stronger to stay by her side. All this made me very weary of life, and I went back to the mouth of the cave and sat watching the sea as it rose higher and higher around "The Spanish Cavalier," and wondered with a weary heart what I should do.
When night came on Eli Fraddam brought me food, and sat by me while I ate it, looking all the while up into my face with his strange wild eyes.
"Jasper missuble," he grunted, presently.
"Yes, Eli," I said, "everything and everybody is against me."
"I knaw! I knaw!" cried Eli, as though a new thought had struck him, "I'll 'elp 'ee, Jasper; I'll vind out!"
"Find out what, Eli?"