It is not my single thought, nor my first; and yet it's there!
I would gladly see you delivered. I do not offer it in love,
and far from that : but as God judges' me — and I wonder at
it too! — quite without enmity."

"Ah," says he, still holding my shoulders and now



Jl^e /I\aster of Ballai^trae 225

gently shaking me, "you think of me more than you sup-
pose. 'And I wonder at it too,' " he added, repeating my
expression and I suppose something of my voice. "You are
an honest man, and for that cause I spare you."

"Spare me?" I cried.
