have n't done anything."

"'T is certain that he did. Had I but known ye at the time,
Miss Janice, he should have been made to swallow his coarse
insult. 'T was for that I sought him this morning. Had ye
not interrupted us, 't would have fared badly for him."

"You were very kind," said Janice, dolefully, beginning, more
from his manner than his words, to believe Evatt. "I did n't
know there were such bad men in the world. And for him to
say it at the tavern, where 't will be all over the county in no
time! Was it very bad?"

"No one would believe a redemptioner," replied Evatt.
"Yet had I the right--"

"Marse Meredith send me to tell youse come to breakfast,"
interrupted Peg from the gateway in the box.

"Why!" exclaimed the girl. "It can't be seven."

"The squire ordered it early, that I might be in the saddle
betimes," explained Evatt, and then as the girl started toward
the house, he checked the movement by taking her hand.
"Miss Janice," he said, "in a half-hour I shall ride away--not
because 't is my wish, but because I'm engaged in an important
and perilous mission--a mission--can ye keep a secret--even
from--from your father and mother?"

Janice was too young and inexperienced to know that a