The tearful young person in the buggy looked very limp and miserable, but declined to make any remarks.
"Miss Fenton and I expect to be married this evening," said Carter, striving for dignity, though his breath came short with excitement. "We take the train in twenty minutes. Your interference is not only impudent—it's useless. I know perfectly well who sent you: it was Judge Hollis. He was the only man we met after we left town. Just return to him, with my compliments, and tell him I say he is a meddler and a fool!"
"Annette," said Sandy, softly, coming toward her, "the doctor'll be wanting his coffee by now."
"Let me pass," cried Carter, "you common hound! Take your foot off that step or I'll—" He made a quick motion toward
his hip, and Sandy caught his hand as it closed on a pearl-handled revolver.
"None of that, man! I'll be going when I have her word. Is it good-by, Annette? Must I be taking the word to your father that you've left him now and for always? Yes? Then a shake of the hand for old times' sake."
Annette slipped a cold little hand into his free one, and feeling the solid grasp of his broad palm, she clung to it as a drowning man clings to a spar.
"I can't go!" she cried, in a burst of tears. "I can't leave dad this way! Make him take me b-back, Sandy! I want to go home!"
Carter stood very still and white. His thin body was trembling from head to foot, and the veins stood out on his forehead like whip-cord. He clenched his hands in an effort to control himself. At Annette's words he stepped aside with elaborate courtesy.
"You are at perfect liberty to go with