"True—ah, yes, Danny, that's tr—. I have it! I have it!" exclaimed the girl. "There are two paths from the Lockjaw to Kisseck's house. I walked both of them with Ruby, yesterday. One goes above the open shaft of the old lead mine, the other below it. Tell the men to take the low road—the low road; be sure you say the low road—and if the police see your fire I'll send them along the high road, and so they will pass with a cliff between them. That's it, thank God. You understand me, Danny? Are you quite sure you understand everything—every little thing?"
"Yes, I do," said the lad, with the energy of a man.
"When they get to Kisseck's cottage let them smoke, drink, gamble, swear—anything—to make believe they have never been out to-night. You know what I mean?"
"I do," repeated the lad.
He was a new being. His former self seemed in that hour to drop from him like a garment.
Mona looked at him in the dim light shot through the window from the fire, and for an instant her heart smote her. What was she doing with this lad? What was he doing for her? Love was her pole-star. What was his? Only the blank self-abandonment of despair. For love of Christian she was risking all this. But the wild force that inspired the heart of this simple lad was love for her who loved another. Whose was the nobler part, hers who hoped all, or his who hoped nothing? In the darkness she felt her face flush deep. Oh, what a great little heart was here—here, in this outcast boy; this neglected, down-trodden, despised, and rejected, poor, pitiful waif of humanity.
"Danny," she murmured, with plaintive tenderness, "it is wrong of me to ask you to do this for me—very, very wrong."
His eyes were dilated. The face, hitherto unutterably mournful to see, was alive with a strange fire. But he said nothing. He turned his head toward the lonely sea, whose low moan came up through the dark night.
She caught both his hands with a passionate grasp. "Danny," she murmured again, "if there was another name for love that is not—"
She stopped, but her eyes were close to his.