"I don't know what's to become of us, Christa and me," she said
despairingly; "if we don't take to drink it will be a wonder, everybody
turning the cold shoulder on us."

This was not her true thought at all. She knew herself to be quite
incapable of the future she suggested, but the theme was excellently
adapted to work upon his feelings.

"I'm going away to-night, Ann," he said; "perhaps I won't see you again
for a long time; but you know all that you said you would promise last
night----"

Her heart began to beat so sharply against her side with sudden hope,
and perhaps another feeling to which she gave no name, that her answer
was breathless. "Yes," she said eagerly, "if----"

He went on gravely: "I am going to start to-night in a row-boat for The
Mills. You can tell me where your father is, and on my way I'll do all I
can to help him to get away. It won't be much use perhaps. It is most
likely that he will only get away from this locality to be arrested in
another, but all that one man can do to help him I will do; but you'll
have to give me the promise first, and I'll trust you to keep it."

Ann said nothing. The immediate weight of agonised care for her father's
life was lifted off her; but she had a strange feeling that the man who
had taken her responsibility had taken upon him its suffering too in a
deeper sense than she could understand. It flashed across her, not
clearly but indistinctly, that the chief element in her suffering had
been the shame of defying law and propriety rather than let her father