"How many times must I tell you?"
"With each sweet breath you draw, if you tell me as many times as I would wish to hear. But this is certain to be the last moment I shall have to see you alone, as you are to start for Dorchester, and I for Boston. And you will surely—surely join me there as soon as I send you word?" He spoke eagerly, and as if fearful that something might arise to make her change her mind.
"Yes, to be sure I will,—have I not promised?"
"That you have, God bless you. And you will let no one turn you from that, little one?"
"Why, who should?" She opened her eyes in surprise, and then there came a flash to them. "No, no, even if every one was to try, they could not do it now. What is that?"
She started nervously, and turned her head quickly about, as they both heard a rustling in the bushes.
"It is only a rabbit or squirrel," her husband said, "or perhaps a—"
There was the sharp report of a gun close by, and a bullet grazed his shoulder and struck the tree-trunk directly over Dorothy's head. The next instant there came the sound of trampling and fierce struggling; and a voice Dorothy knew at once, cried, "You sneaking dastard, what murder is it you 're up to?"
"Stop here, little one," said Captain Southorn, calmly, "just a second, until I see what all this means." And he plunged into the tangled thicket beside the path in which they had been standing.
But Dorothy followed him closely; and a few yards away they came upon Hugh Knollys, towering angrily over a man lying prostrate on the ground, and whom Dorothy recognized instantly as the rude fellow who had so alarmed her at the inn.