Kenneth made a hasty toilet and they walked over to the major's together.
Full half of Lyttleton's time during this week in Chillicothe had been spent there, as Kenneth knew to his no small disturbance. In vain he reminded himself that he could never claim Nell as his own, therefore had not the shadow of a right to stand in the way of another; he could not school his heart into a willingness to utterly resign the faint hope that would linger there, spite of reason's mighty arguments against it.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
Lyttleton and Nell were in the gayest spirits that morning as they sped briskly onward through forest and over prairie, talking cheerily of the sweetness of the air, the beauty of the woods, and exchanging many a little harmless jest, no thought of danger troubling them.
They were several miles out from the town when they espied a small cloud of dust far ahead which seemed to be rapidly drawing nearer.
"What is it?" cried Nell, reining in her pony, while she sent an anxious gaze in the direction of the approaching cloud. "Ah, I see, it is a man riding as if for life."
"After a doctor, I suspect," observed Lyttleton; "some one hurt, perhaps."
"But he must have passed Dr. Clendenin," returned Nell, "so it can hardly be that." And as the man at that moment came dashing up she turned her pony aside to let him pass.
Instead he halted close beside them with a suddenness that nearly threw his horse upon his haunches.