Page:The Valley of Fear.pdf/189

Rh my own for the sake of this promise? Follow your heart, acushla! ’Tis a safer guide than any promise before you knew what it was that you were saying.”

He had seized Ettie’s white hand between his own strong brown ones.

“Say that you will be mine, and we will face it out together!”

“Not here?”

“Yes, here.”

“No, no, Jack!” His arms were round her now. “It could not be here. Could you take me away?”

A struggle passed for a moment over McMurdo’s face; but it ended by setting like granite. “No, here,” he said. “I’ll hold you against the world, Ettie, right here where we are!”

“Why should we not leave together?”

“No, Ettie, I can’t leave here.”

“But why?”

“I’d never hold my head up again if I felt that I had been driven out. Besides, what is there to be afraid of? Are we not free folk in a free country. If you love me, and I you, who will dare to come between?” [187]