Page:That Lass o' Lowrie's.djvu/104

84 "I've done. Will tha walk on first an' let me follow thee?"

Something in her mode of making this suggestion impressed him singularly.

"I do not quite understand—" he said.

She turned and looked at him, her face white and resolute.

"I dunnot want harm done," she answered. "I will na ha' harm done if I con help it, an' if I mun speak th' truth I know theer's harm afoot to-neet. If I'm behind thee, theer is na a mon i' Riggan as dare lay hond on thee to my face, if I am nowt but a lass. That's why I ax thee to let me keep i' soight."

"You are a brave woman," he said, "and I will do as you tell me, but I feel like a coward."

"Theer is no need as you should," she answered in a softened voice. "Yo' dunnot seem loike one to me."

Derrick bent suddenly, and taking her hand, raised it to his lips. At this involuntary act of homage—for it was nothing less—Joan Lowrie looked up at him with startled eyes.

"I am na a lady," she said, and drew her hand away.

They went out into the road together, he first, she following at a short distance, so that nobody seeing the one could avoid seeing the other. It was an awkward and trying position for a man of Derrick's temperament, and under some circumstances he would have rebelled against it; as it was, he could not feel humiliated.

At a certain dark bend in the road not far from Lowrie's cottage, Joan halted suddenly and spoke.

"Feyther," she said, in a clear steady voice, "is na that