“Which Colonel Marion has removed at risk to himself,” I said politely. “I am afraid that if it had not been for him I should have had no throat to complain with! A man called Levi and four others entered your house an hour ago, Captain Wilmer, and dragged me out, and in spite of all my remonstrances—”
“Were going to hang him,” Marion said grimly. “Fortunately they called at the forge, I was here, and Major Craven appealed to me. I interfered—”
“And they cried ‘King’s Cruse,’ I warrant you!” Wilmer struck in.
“Well, they withdrew the stakes,” Marion said with a ghost of a smile. “They were not a very gallant five. So all is well that ends well—as it has in this case, Wilmer. In this case! But—”
“But what was Con doing?” Wilmer cried turning to me. “That she let them take you out of the house?”
I fancied that the moment he had spoken he would have recalled his words; and acting on an impulse which I did not stay to examine, “She did what she could, I have no doubt,” I answered. “What could she do? Colonel Marion may think little of facing five men—”
“Five corn-stalks!” he interpolated lightly.
“But for a woman it’s another matter! A very different matter!”
“And yet,” Wilmer said—but I thought that he breathed more freely—“Con is not exactly a boarding-school miss. She’s—”
“She’s my god-daughter for one thing,” Marion said with a smile.