In the morning Miranda King came to him with a report that matters had been arranged and only needed his sanction. "I can trust my son, and see him take her with a good conscience," she told him. "She's not one of his people, but she's one of mine; and what I have done she can do, and is willing to do."
The clergyman was puzzled. "What do you mean by that, Mrs. King?" he asked her. "What are _your people_? How do they differ from mine, or your husband's?"
She hesitated. "Well, sir, in this way. She hasn't got your tongue, nor my son's tongue."
"She has none at all," said the minister; but Miranda replied, "She can talk without her tongue."
"But I can," was her answer; "she can talk to me--and will talk to you; but not yet. She's dumb for a season, she's struck so. My son will give her back her tongue--by-and-by."
He was much interested. He asked Miranda to tell him who had struck her dumb. For a long time she would not answer. "We don't name him--it's not lawful. He that has the power--the Master--I can go no nearer." He urged her to openness, got her at last to mention "The King of the Wood." The King of the Wood! There she stuck, and nothing he could say could move her from that name, The King of the Wood.
He left it so, knowing his people, and having other things to ask about. What tongue or speech had the respectable, the staid Miranda King in common with the scared waif? To that she answered that she could not tell him; but that it was certain they could understand each other. How? "By looks," she said, and added scornfully, "she's not the kind that has to clatter with her tongue to have speech with her kindred."
Miranda, then, was a kinswoman! He showed his incredulity, and the woman flushed. "See here, Mr. Robson," she said, "I am of the sea, and she of the fell, but we are the same nation. We are not of yours, but you can make us so. Directly I saw her I knew what she was; and so did she know me. How? By the eyes and understanding. I felt who she was. As she is now so was I once. As I am now so will she be. I'll answer for her; I'm here to do it. When once I'd followed my man I never looked back; no more will she. The woman obeys the man--that's the law. If a girl of your people was taken with a man of mine she'd lose her speech and forsake her home and ways. That's the law all the world over. God Almighty's self, if He were a woman, would do the same. He couldn't help it. The law is His; but He made it so sure that not Himself could break it."