They sat by the roadside to talk it over.

"Corydon," he began, "I've been thinking about what we said last
night, and it frightens me horribly. And I want to ask you please
not to think about it any more. I could not take anyone else into my
life--before God, I couldn't be so cruel. I have been shuddering at
the thought of it. Oh please, please, run away from me--before it is
too late!"

"Is that the way it seems?" she asked.

"Corydon!" he cried. "I am a tormented man! There can't be any
happiness in the world for me. And you are so beautiful and so pure
and so good--I simply dare not think of it! You must be happy,
Corydon!"

"I have never yet been happy," she said.

"Listen," he went on--"there is a stanza of Walter Scott's that came
to me this morning--an outlaw song. It seemed to sum up all my
feeling about it:

"'Maiden! a nameless life I lead,
A nameless death I'll die;
The fiend whose lantern lights the mead
Were better mate than I!'"

Corydon sat staring ahead. "You can't frighten me away from you,"
she said, in a low voice. "It isn't worth your while to try. But let