"You rave, my miserable, deluded child," Gilcrest said sadly, "but even though you are for the moment well-nigh bereft of reason by the shock of hearing that your lover has given you up, you must not in your bitterness utter so wicked, so utterly unfounded an accusation against an honorable man who loves you truly and would make you his wife."
Nothing her father could say could induce her to believe that Abner was not laboring under some delusion about his being base-born. She could give no reason for this belief, she said; but her own heart and her own instincts told her it was all a mistake, or else a scheme to separate her and her lover. "This will all be cleared up, I feel that it will," she said again and again, "and he will come back to me soon, and without a stain upon his name. I intend to write to him at once, and tell him that though all the world should forsake him, I will still be true to him, and will believe, too, in his right to wear an honorable name."
Her father reasoned and pleaded in vain. He finally lost all patience, and grew angrier than he had ever been with her. "Go to your room, you unreasonable fool," he finally said. "Go! No longer offend my sight by your presence—but listen, first, and remember I will be obeyed. I forbid your writing one line to that base-born vagabond. Further, I forbid your leaving these premises or holding any communication with any one except members of this household, until you pledge me your word of honor to have nothing more to do with Abner Dudley."
"Then, I'm a prisoner for life," answered Betty; "for so long as I live and breathe, I shall love him. I mean to write to him as soon as I can manage to escape your vigilance and tyranny long enough to post a letter to him, and when he comes back to claim me, I will marry him in spite of you and that villain, James Drane."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
AT THE "BLUE HERON"
Upon the evening preceding Abner's contemplated return to Kentucky, to wind up his business there, and to hunt for evidence in regard to the Page brothers, he strolled down to the "Blue Heron," a tavern in an adjacent street. Entering the tavern, he found himself in the midst of rather an exciting scene, occasioned by a bet just made as to the relative height of two men who were standing leaning on the bar. Both men were of unusual height. At a casual glance the younger of the two, a frequenter of the tavern, would appear to be the taller, by reason of his extreme slenderness of build. The older man was a stranger. The two took their places in the center of the room, back to back; and it was then found that the older man was the taller by nearly an inch. Upon being measured, his exact height was ascertained to be six feet, two inches.
"Seems like I've shrunk some sence I wuz a young man," said the old fellow in a jocular tone, as he pocketed the stakes; "for then I measured six foot, two an' a ha'f, in my sock feet. Thar wuz only one feller in our reg'ment taller'n me, an' that wuz John Logan—'long John' we called him to 'stinguish him frum t'other John Logan, who wuz oncommon tall too, but nigh two inch shorter than 'long John.'"
For a moment Abner was unable to utter a word; then, under cover of the noise made by the hilarious group standing at the bar, drinking at the expense of the man who had lost the wager, he drew the old man to one side, and asked, "Were the two John Logans you speak of related?"