"Mr. Bowles has given me his promise, and it is fair that I should now
ask a promise from you. It is this: just consider how easily a girl
so pretty as you can be the cause of a man's death. Had Bowles struck
me where I struck him I should have been past the help of a surgeon."

"Oh!" groaned Jessie, shuddering, and covering her face with both
hands.

"And, putting aside that danger, consider that a man may be hit
mortally on the heart as well as on the head, and that a woman has
much to answer for who, no matter what her excuse, forgets what misery
and what guilt can be inflicted by a word from her lip and a glance
from her eye. Consider this, and promise that, whether you marry Will
Somers or not, you will never again give a man fair cause to think you
can like him unless your own heart tells you that you can. Will you
promise that?"

"I will, indeed,--indeed." Poor Jessie's voice died in sobs.

"There, my child, I don't ask you not to cry, because I know how much
women like crying; and in this instance it does you a great deal of
good. But we are just at the end of the village; which is Will's
cottage?"

Jessie lifted her head, and pointed to a solitary, small thatched
cottage.

"I would ask you to come in and introduce me; but that might look too
much like crowing over poor Tom Bowles. So good-night to you, Jessie,