"As I was running down the hill, I met him, so covered with dust and blackened with gunpowder, that at first I knew him not. He knew me, and, as I swooned at his feet, he carried me across a field to a road-side inn, where I recovered, and we were about to resume our flight, when the king's soldiers surrounded the house. One of the officers cocked his pistol to shoot my father and would have done so, had I not clung to his neck and presented my body as a shield between him and the trooper's bullet.
"'Spare him for the hangman,' suggested another.
"He was spared, and at the trial it appeared that he held no commission in the rebel's army, so he was condemned to ten years' penal servitude in the colonies, and was sent to Virginia, whither I went, also. Of our escape, through the kindness and courage of your relative in Virginia, you already know."
"Is your father going to take you away?"
"Yes; he says that my persecution at Salem will cease as soon as he can prepare a home for me."
"Where?"
"In Maine."
"Do you want to go away, Cora?"
She was silent for a long while, in fact, so long was she silent that he asked the question again before she answered. Then, fixing her beautiful eyes, with a startled expression, on him, she answered:
"No, no! I would not go away, if I could remain in peace; but our persecutions seem endless. My father is a good man. Although he was a player, he was ever the kindest of fathers, and taught me only the purest religious sentiments, yet Mr. Parris calls him the agent of the devil."