"No, I cannot tell my reason," said the youth, flushing painfully.
"And not even tell me, when you know I am so interested in having you brought out from under this cloud."
"If you knew you would not tell him either," said the youth, doggedly.
She gazed at him quickly. Somehow in her young woman soul she seemed to read his reason. Yes, in a moment, with that keen intuition, developed earlier in woman than in man, she read through this hesitation, this confusion. She knew.
"I can tell who did the deed, though," said the lad, for he thought of the information of the gipsy chief, and that now he was at perfect liberty to tell.
"Who?" asked the girl, eagerly. This youth that had so bravely saved her life should be justified.
Ande related the events of his rescue from the stocks and the tale of the gypsy chief. The girl listened with brightening eye and kindling cheeks.
"It must be so, for how could you have gotten forth from the stocks? No one would have dared to let you out but a person like that. I know how we all wondered when Stephen Blunt came in and told my father that the stocks were empty. But why did you not tell this before?"
"Because Midnight Jack told me it would not hurt them if it wasn't told for a day or so."