“Yes, yes,” I cried.
“But—”
He loosened my hands.
“You haven’t—? Oh, Gil, my lad!”
That seemed the unkindest cut of all—to be suspected after what I had gone through; and I half turned away.
Brace saw it as a confession that I had turned renegade, and his face was growing very dark as my father strode up.
“Pursuit, Captain Brace,” he said; “the rascal has escaped.”
Brace sprang into his saddle, and galloped away, while, in spite of my father being at hand, my heart sank, and I felt more miserable than I had been for days.