When I had knocked him down he lay where he fell, dazed by the
blow, and blinking up at me with his small ferret eyes. I knew him
to be one Edward Sharpless, and I knew no good of him. He had
been a lawyer in England. He lay on the very brink of the stream,
with one arm touching the water. Flesh and blood could not resist
it, so, assisted by the toe of my boot, he took a cold bath to cool his
hot blood.

When he had clambered out and had gone away, cursing, I turned
to face her. She stood against the trunk of a great cedar, her head
thrown back, a spot of angry crimson in each cheek, one small
hand clenched at her throat. I had heard her laugh as Sharpless
touched the water, but now there was only defiance in her face. As
we gazed at each other, a burst of laughter came to us from the
meadow behind. I looked over my shoulder, and beheld young
Hamor, probably disappointed of a wife, - with Giles Allen and
Wynne, returning to his abandoned quarry. She saw, too, for the
crimson spread and deepened and her bosom heaved. Her dark
eyes, glancing here and there like those of a hunted creature, met
my own.

"Madam," I said, "will you marry me?"

She looked at me strangely. "Do you live here?" she asked at last,
with a disdainful wave of her hand toward the town.

"No, madam," I answered. "I live up river, in Weyanoke Hundred,
some miles from here."

"Then, in God's name, let us be gone!" she cried, with sudden