She let her thought dwell for a moment upon the picture of herself as a drunkard which had caused such intense feeling in him.  “I am not worth his caring what becomes of me in that way,” she thought to herself.  It was the first time it ever occurred to her to think that she was unworthy of the love he had for her; but at the same moment she felt a shadow extinguish the rays of hope she had begun to feel, for she believed, as Bart did, that his piety was in direct opposition to the help he might otherwise give her.  She had begun to hope that piety had loosened its grasp upon him for the time.

“I don’t know what’s to become of us, Christa and me,” she said despairingly; “if we don’t take to drink it will be a wonder, everybody turning the cold shoulder on us.”

This was not her true thought at all.  She knew herself to be quite incapable of the future she suggested, but the theme was excellently adapted to work upon his feelings.

“I’m going away to-night, Ann,” he said; “perhaps I won’t see you again for a long time; but you know all that you said you would promise last night——­”

Her heart began to beat so sharply against her side with sudden hope, and perhaps another feeling to which she gave no name, that her answer was breathless.  “Yes,” she said eagerly, “if——­”

He went on gravely:  “I am going to start to-night in a row-boat for The Mills.  You can tell me where your father is, and on my way I’ll do all I can to help him to get away.  It won’t be much use perhaps.  It is most likely that he will only get away from this locality to be arrested in another, but all that one man can do to help him I will do; but you’ll have to give me the promise first, and I’ll trust you to keep it.”

Ann said nothing.  The immediate weight of agonised care for her father’s life was lifted off her; but she had a strange feeling that the man who had taken her responsibility had taken upon him its suffering too in a deeper sense than she could understand.  It flashed across her, not clearly but indistinctly, that the chief element in her suffering had been the shame of defying law and propriety rather than let her father undergo a just penalty.  In some way or other this had been all transferred to Bart, and in the glimmering understanding of his character which was growing within her, she perceived that he had it in him to suffer under it far more intensely than she had suffered.  It was very strange that just when she obtained the promise she wanted from him she would have been glad to set him free from it!