58 FOLLE-FARINE.
tender to her, had no woman's foolishness, but had taught
her to be hardy and strong, and to look for neither caresses
nor compassion—knowing well that to the love chUd of
Taric in her future years the first could only mean shame,
and the last could only mean alms, which would be shame
likewise.
"Go, dear," he said softly to her; and then he struck
with his staff on the Avooden door, and lifting its latch,
unclosed it; and thrust the child forward, ere she could
resist, into the darkness of the Ioav entrance place.
Then he turned and Avent swiftly himself through the
orchard and wood into the gloom and the storm of tlic
night.
He knew that to show himself to a northern householder
were to do her evil and hurt; for betAveen the wanderer of
the Spanish forests and the peasant of the Norman pastures
there could be only defiance, mistrust, and disdain.
" I will see how it is Avith her to-morrow," he said to
himself as he faced again tho Avind and the sleet. " If it be
well with her—let it be weU. If not, she must come forth
Avith me, and we must seek some lair Avhere her wolf-sire
shall not prowl and discover her. But it will be hard to
find; for the vengeance of Taric is swift of foot and has a
far-stretching hand and eyes that are sleepless."
And his heart Avas heavy in him as he went. He liad
done what seemed to him just and due to the child and her
mother ; he had been true to the vow he had made answer¬
ing the mute prayer of the sightless dead eyes ; he had
saved the flesh of the chUd from the whip of the trainer, and
the future of the child from the shame of the brothel; he
had done thus much in saving her from her father, and he
had done it in the only way that was possible to him.
Yet his heart Avas heavy as he went ; and it seemed to
him even as though he had thrust some mountain bird with
pinions that Avould cleave the clouds, and eyes that would
seek the sun, and a song that would rise with the dawn and
a courage that Avould breast the thunder, down into the
darkness of a trap, to be shorn and crippled and silenced
for evermore,
" I will see her to-morrow," he told himself; restlesfj
«vith a vague remorse, as though the good he had done had
been evil.
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