"Why?"

"You walked with her, and talked with her, Peter--like Caesar, 'you came, you saw, you conquered'!"

Here I dragged my tinder-box from my pocket so awkwardly as to bring the lining with it.

"And--even smiled at her, Peter--and you so rarely smile!"

Having struck flint and steel several times without success, I thrust the tinder-box back into my pocket and fixed my gaze upon the moon.

"Is she so very pretty, Peter?"

I stared up at the moon without answering.

"I wonder if you bother her with your Epictetus and--and dry-as-dust quotations?"

I bit my lips and stared up at the moon.

"Or perhaps she likes your musty books and philosophy?"

But presently, finding that I would not speak, Charmian began to sing, very sweet and low, as if to herself, yet, when I chanced to glance towards her, I found her mocking eyes still watching me. Now the words of her song were these:

"O, my luve's like a red, red rose, That's newly sprung in June; O, my luve's like the melodie That's sweetly played in tune."

And so, at last, unable to bear it any longer, I rose and, taking my candle, went into my room and closed the door. But I had been there scarcely five minutes when Charmian knocked.

"Oh, Peter! I wish to speak to you--please." Obediently I opened the door.

"What is it, Charmian?"

"You dropped this from your pocket when you took out your tinder-box so clumsily!" said she, holding towards me a crumpled paper. And looking down at it, I saw that it was Black George's letter to Prudence.

Now, as I took it from her, I noticed that her hand trembled, while in her eyes I read fear and trouble; and seeing this, I was, for a moment, unwontedly glad, and then wondered at myself.

"You--did not read it--of course?" said I, well knowing that she had.

"Yes, Peter--it lay open, and--"

"Then," said I, speaking my thought aloud, "you know that she loves George."

"He means you harm," said she, speaking with her head averted, "and, if he killed you--"

"I should be spared a deal of sorrow, and--and mortification, and--other people would be no longer bothered by Epictetus and dry-as-dust quotations." She turned suddenly, and, crossing to the open doorway, stood leaning there. "But, indeed," I went on hurriedly, "there is no chance of such a thing happening--not the remotest. Black George's bark is a thousand times worse than his bite; this letter means nothing, and--er--nothing at all," I ended, somewhat lamely, for she had turned and was looking at me over her shoulder.

"If he has to 'wait and wait, and follow you and follow you'?"

said she, in the same low tone.

"Those are merely the words of a half-mad pedler," said I.

"'And your blood will go soaking, and soaking into the grass'!"

"Our Pedler has a vivid imagination!" said I lightly. But she shook her head, and turned to look out upon the beauty of the night once more, while I watched her, chin in hand.

"I was angry with you to-night, Peter," said she at length, "because you ordered me to do something against my will--and I --did it; and so, I tried to torment you--you will forgive me for that, won't you?"

"There is nothing to forgive, nothing, and--good night, Charmian."

Here she turned, and, coming to me, gave me her hand.

"Charmian Brown will always think of you as a--"

"Blacksmith!" said I.

"As a blacksmith!" she repeated, looking at me with a gleam in her eyes, "but oftener as a--"

"Pedant!" said I.

"As a pedant!" she repeated obediently, "but most of all as a--"

"Well?" said I.

"As a--man," she ended, speaking with bent head. And here again I was possessed of a sudden gladness that was out of all reason, as I immediately told myself.

"Your hand is very small," said I, finding nothing better to say, "smaller even than I thought."

"Is it?" and she smiled and glanced up at me beneath her lashes, for her head was still bent.

"And wonderfully smooth and soft!"

"Is it?" said she again, but this time she did not look up at me.

Now another man might have stooped and kissed those slender, shapely fingers--but, as for me, I loosed them, rather suddenly, and, once more bidding her good night, re-entered my own chamber, and closed the door.

But to-night, lying upon my bed, I could not sleep, and fell to watching the luminous patch of sky framed in my open casement. I thought of Charmian, of her beauty, of her strange whims and fancies, her swift-changing moods and her contrariness, comparing her, in turn, to all those fair women I had ever read of or dreamed over in my books. Little by little, however, my thoughts drifted to Gabbing Dick and Black George, and, with my mind's eye, I could see him as he was (perhaps at this very moment), fierce-eyed and grim of mouth, sitting beneath some hedgerow, while, knife in hand, he trimmed and trimmed his two bludgeons, one of which was to batter the life out of me. From such disquieting reflections I would turn my mind to sweet-eyed Prudence, to the Ancient, the forge, and the thousand and one duties of the morrow. I bethought me, once more, of the storm, of the coming of Charmian, of the fierce struggle in the dark, of the Postilion, and of Charmian again. And yet, in despite of me, my thoughts would revert to George, and I would see myself even as the Pedler pictured me, out in some secluded corner of the woods, lying stiffly upon my back with glassy eyes staring up sightlessly through the whispering leaves above, while my blood soaked and soaked into the green, and with a blackbird singing gloriously upon my motionless breast.

CHAPTER XV

WHICH, BEING IN PARENTHESIS, MAY BE SKIPPED IF THE READER SO DESIRE

As this life is a Broad Highway along which we must all of us pass whether we will or no; as it is a thoroughfare sometimes very hard and cruel in the going, and beset by many hardships, sometimes desolate and hatefully monotonous, so, also, must its aspect, sooner or later, change for the better, and, the stony track overpassed, the choking heat and dust left behind, we may reach some green, refreshing haven shady with trees, and full of the cool, sweet sound of running waters. Then who shall blame us if we pause unduly in this grateful shade, and, lying upon our backs a while, gaze up through the swaying green of trees to the infinite blue beyond, ere we journey on once more, as soon we must, to front whatsoever of good or evil lies waiting for us in the hazy distance.

To just such a place am I now come, in this, my history; the record of a period which I, afterwards, remembered as the happiest I had ever known, the memory of which must remain with me, green and fragrant everlastingly.

If, in the forthcoming pages, you shall find over-much of Charmian, I would say, in the first place, that it is by her, and upon her, that this narrative hangs; and, in the second place, that in this part of my story I find my greatest pleasure; though here, indeed, I am faced with a great difficulty, seeing that I must depict, as faithfully as may be, that most difficult, that most elusive of all created things, to wit--a woman.

Truly, I begin to fear lest my pen fail me altogether for the very reason that it is of Charmian that I would tell, and of Charmian I understand little more than nothing; for what rule has ever been devised whereby a woman's mind may be accurately gauged, and who of all those wise ones who have written hitherto --poets, romancers, or historians--has ever fathomed the why and wherefore of the Mind Feminine?

A fool indeed were I to attempt a thing impossible; I do but seek to show her to you as I saw her, and to describe her in so far as I learned to know her.