“William!” burst out Ruth almost with a scream.  “You can’t mean what you say.  Listen to the roar of the coming storm.  It’s almost here.  Surely you don’t know what you are saying.  Send David through the deadening in the very teeth of a tempest like this, for a bit of string!”

“Come to the house, my dear.  It is beginning to rain.  I am afraid you will take cold.  You, sir, will go back at once,” turning to the boy.  “You know, of course, that the string itself is of no importance in this matter.  It is absurd to speak of such a thing.  But it is my duty to teach you, as far as I can, to perform yours.  I tell you again to go at once.  That is all I have to say, I believe, concerning this matter.  Come, Ruth, it is beginning to rain.”

She shrunk away from his hand as if its touch horrified her.  Her tears were falling faster than the heavy, isolated drops that fell on her bare head.  But her courage was rising at need, as it always rose, and she was not too much blinded by tears to see that the boy was getting on the pony again.  She ran to him and caught his sleeve, and turned upon William Pressley with the reckless fierceness of a gentle creature made daring in defence of what it loves.

“You are cruel,” she said, speaking calmly, steadied by the very extremity of her excitement and distress.  “You have no more heart than a stone.  You feel nothing that does not touch yourself.  You have always been unkind to David.  But you shall not do this.  I will prevent you—­defy you.  You shall not send him to his death for some narrow, tyrannical notion.  He is like my brother.  I love him as if he were.  And I wouldn’t allow you to treat a stranger so.  It’s inhuman!  It shall not be!” panting, and clinging to the boy.

William Pressley stared at her as if he thought she had suddenly lost her senses.  Could this be Ruth speaking like that—­and to himself?  Instinctively he threw into his voice the whole weight of his heavy, cold rage, which had never yet failed to crush all life and spirit out of her most fiery resistance.

“This is truly shocking.  I scarcely know what to say.  I am merely trying to do my unpleasant duty in a perfectly simple matter.  If I didn’t try to do it, I should always think less well of myself—­”

“Think less well of yourself!” she cried.  “Nothing in the world could ever make you do that!  Nothing!  Whatever you think and say and do is always right; whatever anybody else thinks or says or does is always wrong.  I have given up in almost everything because I loved peace more than my own way, and because I am not often sure that I know best.  But I will not give up in this!” shrinking and quivering at a peal of thunder, but clinging closer to the boy’s arm.

William Pressley came nearer and laid his hand on her shoulder.

“Come to the house, my dear,” he said quietly.  “It is beginning to rain harder.  You will certainly take cold.  Come at once.  When you have time to think, you will see how childish and foolish all this is.  We will say no more about it.  You, sir, know what is right for you to do.  You know as well as I do what the judge’s positive orders were.  You have disregarded them—­”