No doubt the same old, sickening flight was upon us once more. The life I led was killing me. I certainly began to grow old as fast as grandpapa grew young. But this time they might be secretly married already for all I knew.
"He is going to see papa. I know my father will consent. And you, dear Mrs. Dolphin? May I be a little daughter to you? I will love you so dearly. I do already."
"Child," I answered, "you must face the truth and be brave. Daniel is much older--I mean younger--at least, he is different to what he seems. He can never marry again. Daniel has a great mystery hanging over his life. Supernatural agents are interested in him. He has violated all the laws of Nature--at least, I fancy so. I am not his mother at all. He is my grandfather. His real mother has been dead nearly a hundred years."
The girl's blue eyes grew quite round.
"Mrs. Dolphin!" she gasped.
"No; Miss Dolphin. He is my grandfather I tell you. I am unmarried. He has signed an agreement with--it doesn't matter. At any rate, he's already been married three times. He's a widower, and he cannot live more than three years, and----"
Mabel screamed, jumped from the pony carriage, and fell almost at the feet of a horseman who had overtaken us. It was grandpapa.
The girl ran sobbing to him, and I got out of the pony carriage. Grandfather, dismounting, took the trembling Mabel into his arms, on the high road, near some Druidical remains, and openly hugged her before me and the groom.
"What does this mean?" asked grandpapa fiercely, eyeing me with a scowl.
"She--she--oh, Daniel, she says you're her grandfather, and a married man, and--and I'm frightened--very frightened of her."