“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