"I tell you," he repeated slowly, "what I've come here to say--I do despise a young lady without a heart.

Do you know what occurred last night?
As good an old gentleman as ever lived was brutally felled to the earth and killed; a poor man who was never worse than a drunkard has become a murderer, and there's a many good pious ladies in this town who'll go about till death's day jeered at as fools.

Would you like to be marked for a fool?
No, you wouldn't and neither will they; and if you're the young lady I take you for, you could have hindered all this, _and_ you didn't.

_I_ brought the old man to this place; I am to blame in that, my own self, I am; but I tell you, by the salvation of my soul, when I stood last night and heard him pray, and saw those poor ladies with their white garbs all bedraggled, around him praying, I said to myself, 'Cyril, you've reason to call on the rocks and hills to cover you,' and I had grace to be right down sorry.

I'm right down ashamed, and so I'm going to pull up stakes and go back to where I came from; and I've come here now to tell you that after what I've seen of you in this matter I'd sooner die than be hitched with you.