There was no answer, but in the silence which followed he thought he
heard a woman's sob.

"Come out into the road," he cried, "or I shall fire."

His own fear of pistols was so great that he expected everyone else to
be terrorized by the threat of using them; and yet he had never
possessed nor carried a pistol in his life.

"Please--please don't fire," cried a trembling voice, from out the
darkness. "I will do as you tell me." And so saying the figure moved
out upon the road.

Trenchon peered at her through the darkness, but whether she was old or
young he could not tell. Her voice seemed to indicate that she was
young.

"Why, lass," said Trenchon, kindly, "what dost thou here at such an
hour and in such a night?"

"Alas!" she cried, weeping; "my father turned me out, as he has often
done before, but to-night is a bitter night, and I had nowhere to go,
so I came here to be sheltered from the rain. He will be asleep ere
long, and he sleeps soundly. I may perhaps steal in by a window,
although sometimes he fastens them down."

"God's truth!" cried Trenchon, angrily. "Who is thy brute of a father?"

The girl hesitated, and then spoke as if to excuse him, but again
Trenchon demanded his name.