Another instant, and I had smitten him: the son of my own mother, the man whom I have longed to take to my heart.

Alas! that I should still be so weak." "Weak!" she exclaimed, raising her black eyebrows.

"I do not think that even my father himself, who is a hard judge of manhood, would call you that.

But it is, as you may think, sir, a very pleasant thing for me to hear that you are grieved at what you have done, and I can but rede that we should go back together, and you should make your peace with the Socman by handing back your prisoner.

It is a sad thing that so small a thing as a woman should come between two who are of one blood." Simple Alleyne opened his eyes at this little spurt of feminine bitterness.