"'Tis a fearful-looking thing, let me tell you," she said, gingerly raising one corner of her basket lid.
"Some queer fish, is it?—out of the river?" he asked eagerly, for he was a mighty fisherman.
"Out of the river," nodded she.
"A pike of some sort perhaps."
"Yes, I should say, of some sort."
"You dear, splendid, diamond of a girl," ecstatically cried Lawrence, "as I live 'tis a pike! can't I see it gleaming?" and he clutched at the concealing hay—"a big silver pike!"
"No, a steel one," she said, as the weapon lay exposed in all its nakedness, and steadily she lifted her eyes to his face.
Found out.
It had grown ashen white, and he staggered back for support against the bridge rail. "Ruth!" he gasped, as the handful of hay dropped from his powerless fingers and floated away on the swirl of the stream, "what is the meaning of this?"
"That you must tell me, Lawrence."