Raish forced a contemptuous laugh. "The red-cloak, who should not even be mentioned in this presence, may stay in the valley for me. My acquaintance with the red-cloak belongs to a day before I knew Evelyn. She condones the past, accepts the dedication of my future life." Drawing Evelyn aside, he whispered, "Don't be alarmed. My pledge holds good. This is all bluff, my doing the devoted, to throw them off the track." Stooping suddenly he kissed her.
"My young friend," Maclane restrained and admonished Scarlett, "my sympathies are yours wholly. But are you not exceeding your authority?"
"Aye," confessed the Irishman, "I'm stretching it a bit, maybe, to fit me intuitions. Dominie, I tell ye 'tis a fishy business. Not an hour since, the girl was in these arms of mine, lip to lip, and liking it. And now, look at her shudder at that fellow's touch."
"Sergeant Scarlett"—breaking from Raish, Evelyn came to him and laid a coaxing hand upon his arm—"I know that in your heart you are despising me for a cheap coquette. And I deserve it. I have given you cause to think the worst of me. I can't explain. But if you could only read my heart—could only know what this means to me—it's the happiness of my life! It will be misery to the end of my days if I fail him at this supreme test. You're magnanimous, above all pettiness, I know. You simply want to save me, as you think, from making a mistake. But believe me, trust me, I know what I'm about. Now, will you do me the greatest favor one human being ever entreated of another, by signing your name to that document?"
Scarlett looked tenderly down on her, and, swayed against his judgment by her earnestness, he might have yielded, had not the Dandy inopportunely added the word too much.
"Sergeant Scarlett will hardly dare take the consequences of refusing when I tell him that without the protection of my name Miss Durant will be irretrievably compromised!"
Scarlett checked an almost overwhelming impulse to kick the speaker. Instead, he took Evelyn's cold fingers into his honest grasp. "I'd give my name to shield ye, my life to serve ye, and now I'm going to risk my official honor, to—as I think, to save ye." He tore up the paper.
Above the general outcry that ensued, Sarah's tones were heard. "A pretty country where you can't marry whom you please! America's good enough for me!"
"America!" exclaimed Evelyn, struck by a sudden thought. "Are there such restrictions with us in America?"
"Unfortunately not, my dear," replied Maclane, who had once occupied a Chicago pastorate. "In the States the sacred tie is made and broken far more easily."