The young man laughed, but not pleasantly, and there was a nervous twitching of the fingers resting upon the hilt of his sword.
"You are surely aware, sir," he said, "that I have the honor of a slight acquaintance with your daughter. And I fail to see why I should be insulted, simply because I was mistaken in holding it to be but natural courtesy that I should bid her farewell."
Here his voice broke in a way that was strange to all save Dorothy and Mary, as he added: "We leave this place to-morrow, sir, and your daughter and myself are never like to meet again; and I had good reason to wish the privilege of begging her forgiveness for aught I may have done to cause her annoyance. And if she refused me forgiveness, then she might be pleased to wish me a right speedy meeting with a bullet from one of her own people's guns."
Joseph Devereux looked sorely puzzled at these strange words, which seemed to bear some hidden meaning. Then, as he felt the quivering of the slight form clinging to him so closely, and heard the tremulous "Oh, father, speak him kindly," his face relaxed and he spoke less brusquely than at first.
"Your conduct seems rather cavalier, young sir, but we surely have no wish to seem insulting; and as for any annoyance you may have caused my daughter, I am ignorant o' such. It is but natural, considering the times, that we do not relish receiving into our houses gentry who wear such color as is your coat; and yet we are not cut-throats, either in deed or thought. We pray and hope for the good of our country and cause; and for such, and such only, do we think o' the use o' bullets."
During all this time the dragoon's eyes never strayed from the curly head pressed against the old man's arm. And now, while her father was speaking, Dorothy's face was turned, and the big dark eyes, full of perplexity and fear, met his own and held them.
Mary had made a sign to her husband, and he followed her into the drawing-room, where Aunt Lettice was still sitting before the fire, the trembling fingers betraying her excitement as they flashed the slender needles back and forth through the stocking she was knitting.
"What does it all mean, dear?" she inquired, as Mary came and looked down into the fire, while she twisted her hands together in a nervous fashion most unusual with her.
"It means," John Devereux answered angrily, but not loud enough to reach the ears of those in the hall, "that there is never any telling to what length the presuming impudence of these redcoats will go." He ground his teeth savagely as he wondered why he had not taken the intruder by the collar and ejected him before the others came upon the scene; and he was now angry at himself for not having done this.
"Whatever can he wish to say good-by to Dot for?" he muttered hastily to his wife. "And whatever can he mean about annoying her? Annoy her, indeed! Had he done such a thing, I should have heard of it ere this, and he would not have gone unpunished all these days, to crawl in now with a pretence of apology."