“I am so determined,” she answered resolutely, though trembling, “to fly from such a lover. There was a poor woman died here but a little while ago, scores of years older than I am, whom I found by chance, lying on the wet earth. You may have heard some account of her?”

“I think I have,” he answered, “if her name was Higden.”

“Her name was Higden. Though she was so weak and old, she kept true to one purpose to the very last. Even at the very last, she made me promise that her purpose should be kept to, after she was dead, so settled was her determination. What she did, I can do. Mr. Wrayburn, if I believed⁠—but I do not believe⁠—that you could be so cruel to me as to drive me from place to place to wear me out, you should drive me to death and not do it.”