"I don't wish it now, nor do you, I know; but we shall have time enough to settle all such questions."
"Plenty; I only wish we had not so much. Yet I don't mean to grumble; the months will soon slip away and bring the time when I may claim my prize."
They were riding towards the Oaks; the sun had just set, and the moon was still below the horizon.
Elsie suddenly reined in her horse, Mr. Travilla instantly doing likewise, and turned a pale, agitated face upon him. "Did you hear that?" she asked low and tremulously.
"What, dear child? I heard nothing but the sound of our horses' hoofs, the sighing of the wind in the tree-tops, and our own voices."
"I heard another; a muttered oath and the words, 'You shall never win her. I'll see to that.' The tones were not loud but deep, and the wind seemed to carry the sounds directly to my ear," she whispered, laying a trembling little hand on his arm, and glancing nervously from side to side.
"A trick of the imagination, I think, dearest; but from whence did the sounds seem to come?"
"From yonder thicket of evergreens and—I knew the voice for that of your deadly foe, the man from whom you and papa rescued me in Landsdale."
"My child, he is expiating his crime in a Pennsylvania penitentiary."
"But may he not have escaped, or have been pardoned out? Don't, oh don't, I entreat you!" she cried, as he turned his horse's head in the direction of the thicket. "You will be killed."