Accordingly, the next morning saw the two embarking, alone. Obed could not budge. Philip promised to exercise every kind of care, and he would communicate with Obed, by way of Chantico, within a few days. They bid these true, if new, friends good-bye. Philip shook Obed’s rough hand as the farmer lay in bed suffering severely, and any thing but patient at so untimely a set-back.
“I—I’d rather have lost a small fortune than that things should come this way,” he declared; “an’ I’ll be in as much of a fever as Loreta till we get word from you. I’m sure I wish you could stay a month.”
A rough and not particularly direct passage brought them safely to Chantico about noon. It was a bright, cold day. A stage-coach ran to Knoxport. They had exactly time to catch this. By the middle of the afternoon they were trundling along the main business street of Knoxport. They were set down at the door of the Kossuth House, the largest of the few inns the town possessed.
“At last! Here at last, Gerald,” exclaimed Touchtone, in deep relief, as they hurried into the office.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
SUSPENSE.
An elderly man, short-statured and with his grave countenance surmounted by a pair of spectacles, glanced at them from behind the desk of the neat little hotel as they approached it. Philip drew forward the register and took up the pen proffered him. Then he checked himself.
“No! It wont do to register—at least to register our own names; and I don’t like to put down others.”
During the instant’s hesitation came an exclamation from Gerald.