“No, you do not hate me—­I am not worth it.  You despise me, and do you think that is any better?  I am only a cottar’s child.  I have been but a waiting-maid.  But I have read how maids have loved the kings and the kings loved them.  Yes, I own it.  I am proud of it.  I have schemed and lain awake at nights for this.  Why should I not love you?  Others have loved me without asking my leave.  Why should I ask yours?  And love came to me without your leave or my own that day on the road when you let me carry your books.”

She let her arms drop from his neck and buried her face in her hands, sobbing now with very genuine tears.  Ralph could not yet move away, even though no longer held by the stringent coercion of this girl’s arms.  He was too grieved, too suddenly and bitterly disappointed to have any fixed thought or resolve.  But the good man does not live who can listen unmoved to the despairing catch of the sobbing in a woman’s throat.  Then on his hands, which he had clasped before him, he felt the steady rain of her tears; his heart went out in a great pity for this wayward girl who was baring her soul to him.

The whole note and accent of her grief was of unmistakable feeling.  Jess Kissock had begun in play, but her inflammable nature kindled easily into real passion.  For at least that night, by the bridge of the Grannoch water, she believed that her heart was broken.

Ralph put his hand towards her with some unformed idea of sympathy.  He murmured vague words of comfort, as he might have done to a wailing child that had hurt itself; but he had no idea how to still the tempestuous grief of a passion-pale woman.

Suddenly Jess Kissock slipped down and clasped him about the knees.  Her hair had broken from its snood and streamed a cloud of intense blackness across her shoulders.  He could see her only weirdly and vaguely, as one may see another by the red light of a wood ember in the darkness.  She seemed like a beautiful, pure angel, lost by some mischance, praying to him out of the hollow pit of the night.

“I carried your burden for you once, the day I first saw you.  Let me carry your burden for you across the world.  If you will not love me, let me but serve you.  I would slave so hard!  See, I am strong—­”

She seized his hands, gripping thorn till his fingers clave together with the pressure.

“See how I love you!” her hands seemed to say.  Then she kissed his hands, wetting them with the downfalling of her tears.

The darkness settled back thicker than before.  He could not see the kneeling woman whose touch he felt.  He strove to think what he should do, his emotions and his will surging in a troubled maelstrom about his heart.

But just then, from out of the darkness high on the unseen hill above them, there came a cry—­a woman’s cry of pain, anger, and ultimate danger:  “Ralph, Ralph, come to me—­come!” it seemed to say to him.  Again and again it came, suddenly faltered and was silenced as if smothered—­as though a hand had been laid across a mouth that cried and would not be silent.