"Hope, hope! And O, Edward, you have said the word!"
"Hope, through our child. Innocence has prevailed over vice and cruelty. She came to the strong, evil, passionate man, and, in her weakness and innocence, prevailed over him. God made her fearless and eloquent."
A year afterwards a stranger came again that way, and stopped at the "Stag and Hounds." As before, Jenks was behind his well-filled bar, and drinking customers came and went in numbers. Jenks did not recognize him until he called for water, and drank a full tumbler of the pure liquor with a hearty zest. Then he knew him, but feigned to be ignorant of his identity. The stranger made no reference to the scene he had witnessed there a twelvemonth before, but lingered in the bar for most of the day, closely observing every one that came to drink. Leslie was not among the number.
"What has become of the man and the little girl I saw here, at my last visit to Milanville?" said the stranger, speaking at last to Jenks.
"Gone to the devil, for all I care," was the landlord's rude answer, as he turned off from his questioner.
"For all you care, no doubt," said the stranger to himself. "Men often speak their real thoughts in a passion."
"Do you see that little white cottage away off there, just at the edge of the wood? Two tall poplars stand in front."
Thus spoke to the stranger one who had heard him address the landlord.
"I do. What of it?" he answered.
"The man you asked for lives there."