“But it is though, Ada, my darling!” Then there was a little pause in his speech. “Did I not tell you that I should see you to-day?”
“Hush. Do you know who is here? Your brother came across to us from the Green River yesterday.”
“The mischief he did! Then I shall never find my way back again. If you knew what I have gone through for this!”
Ada immediately stepped out through the door and on to the snow, standing close up against him as she whispered to him, “I don’t think Frank would betray you,” she said. “I don’t think he would.”
“I doubt him,—doubt him hugely. But I suppose I must trust him. I got through the pickets close to Cumberland Gap, and I left my horse at Stoneley’s half way between this and Lexington. I cannot go back to-night now that I have come so far!”
“Wait, Tom; wait a minute, and I will go in and tell your mother. But you must be hungry. Shall I bring you food?”
“Hungry enough, but I will not eat my father’s victuals out here in the snow.”
“Wait a moment, dearest, till I speak to my aunt.”
Then Ada slipped back into the house and soon managed to get Mrs. Reckenthorpe away from the room in which the major and his second son were sitting.
“Tom is here,” she said, “in the garden. He had encountered all this danger to pay us a visit because it is Christmas. Oh, aunt, what are we to do? He says that Frank would certainly give him up!”