"You're not reasonable," he said. "You own that Millie's too young to be married; but you wouldn't have her stay in Vrouw Lutwyche's clutches, would you?"
"The worse they treat her, the more likely she is to come to me," said Bert calmly.
"Or to Otis."
"Chuck it!" burst out Bert hoarsely. "Chuck it, I tell you." He shook with all the inward feelings which he could not explain. How could he say that it scorched him with sheer physical heat and shame, to hear Amurrica even suggested as a mate for Millie? "He'd poison her soul," he groaned; and Mayne felt an acute inward sympathy with him.
"Mestaer," he said kindly. "It seems very doubtful whether any of the English relations of Millie's mother will be willing—or if willing, able to receive her. Her father has left in my hands a little sum of money—very small, but enough to pay her passage home. It appears that the family of the first Mrs. Lutwyche all disapproved of her marriage. They are poor proud people, and as he has had no communication with them since her death, I do not even know whether his letter will reach them. If however they do write, and if they offer to have the girl home, on any terms, you have the sense to see that she most certainly ought to go."
"Perhaps she won't go. Who's goin' to make her?"
"I am her guardian," said Mayne, very quietly.
"If you try an' make her do anything she don't wanter, I'll choke you with my own hands," said Bert earnestly.
The priest was unable to help smiling.
"Mestaer, if you had lived in other days, you would have been a devout lover," he said. "As it is, you are a bit of a barbarian, are you not?"