Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/337

Rh "Girl, do you know that if I'm not back by daybreak, I'm ruined!"

"And oh, man, man! Can't 'ee see that I'm ruined, too, if I turn back without your word? How shall I show my face in Troy streets again, tell me?" At this sudden transference of responsibility the minister was staggered.

"You should have thought of that before," he said, employing the one obvious answer.

"O' course I thought of it. But for love o' you I made up my mind to risk it. An' now there's no goin' back." She paused a moment and then added, as a thought struck her, "Why, lad, doesn' that prove I love 'ee uncommon?"

"I prefer not to consider the question. Once more—will you go back?"

"I can't."

He bit his lips and moved forward to the cuddy, on the roof of which he seated himself sulkily. The girl tossed him an end of rope.

"Dear, better coil that up an' sit 'pon it. The frost'll strike a chill into thee."

With this she resumed her old attitude by the tiller. Her eyes were fixed ahead, her gaze passing just over the minister's hat. When he glanced up he saw the rime twinkling on her shoulders and the star-shine in her dark eyes. Around them the heavens blazed with constellations. Never had the minister seen them so multitudinous or so