Wondering who this unknown but powerful friend of her brother could be, Frances glided across the fields, and using due precautions in approaching the dwelling, regained her residence undiscovered and in safety.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Hence, bashful cunning!
And prompt me, plain and holy innocence;
I am your wife, if you will marry me.
—Tempest.
On joining Miss Peyton, Frances learned that Dunwoodie was not yet returned; although, with a view to relieve Henry from the importunities of the supposed fanatic, he had desired a very respectable divine of their own church to ride up from the river and offer his services. This gentleman was already arrived, and had been passing the half hour he had been there, in a sensible and well-bred conversation with the spinster, that in no degree touched upon their domestic affairs.
To the eager inquiries of Miss Peyton, relative to her success in her romantic excursion, Frances could say no more than that she was bound to be silent, and to recommend the same precaution to the good maiden also. There was a smile playing around the beautiful mouth of Frances, while she uttered this injunction, which satisfied her aunt that all was as it should be. She was urging her niece to take some refreshment after her fatiguing expedition, when the noise of a horseman riding to the door, announced the return of the major. He had been found by the courier who was dispatched by Mason, impatiently waiting the return of Harper to the ferry, and immediately flew to the place where his friend had been confined, tormented by a thousand conflicting fears. The heart of Frances bounded as she listened to his approaching footsteps. It wanted yet an hour to the termination of the shortest period that the peddler had fixed as the time necessary to effect his escape. Even Harper, powerful and well-disposed as he acknowledged himself to be, had laid great stress upon the importance of detaining the Virginians during that hour. She, however, had not time to rally her thoughts, before Dunwoodie entered one door, as Miss Peyton, with the readiness of female instinct, retired through another.
The countenance of Peyton was flushed, and an air of vexation and disappointment pervaded his manner.
“’Twas imprudent, Frances; nay, it was unkind,” he cried, throwing himself in a chair, “to fly at the very moment that I had assured him of safety! I can almost persuade myself that you delight in creating points of difference in our feelings and duties.”
“In our duties there may very possibly be a difference,” returned his mistress, approaching, and leaning her slender form against the wall; “but not in our feelings, Peyton. You must certainly rejoice in the escape of Henry!”
“There was no danger impending. He had the promise of Harper; and it is a word never to be doubted. O Frances! Frances! had you known the man, you would never have distrusted his assurance; nor would you have again reduced me to this distressing alternative.”