"'Galloping Hermit,' Mr. Crosby."
"While fresh horses are being harnessed, Mistress Lanison will have a hasty breakfast, at least share the meal with us."
"Daylight is dangerous for me. I ride safely only in the night. A tankard of ale, landlord, and then for a hiding hole."
Barbara gently put Crosby's arm away from her, and went to the horseman's side.
"Whoever you may be, I thank you from the bottom of my heart," she said. "You cannot know all that you are to me. You have been constantly in my thoughts; I will not tell you why, but I have shuddered to think what must sometimes have happened when you rode in the night. Might not the brown mask cease to exist? Some day I may be in England again, may be strong to help if need should come. Take this ring of mine. The man who brings it to me, though many years should pass between now and then, shall never ask of me in vain. Burn the mask, sir, and learn that you are too honest a gentleman for such a trade."
The man took the ring.
"Mistress Lanison, I have stopped my last coach," he said. "It was a good ending since it saved you from a scoundrel. Do not think too harshly of the past. It has had more honesty in it than you would imagine. For love of a woman I took to the road; for love of a woman the road shall know me no more. Ah, landlord, the ale! To you, mistress, and to you, Mr. Crosby. May God's blessing be with you to the end."
He drank, and tossing the empty tankard to the landlord, turned his horse and galloped back along the road.
For half an hour or more the coach stood before the door of "The Jolly Farmers," and then, with fresh horses, started briskly on its journey to Southampton. At the inn the landlord had waited upon his guests so attentively that they could say little to each other, but in the coach they were alone, shut away with their happiness from all the prying world. With her golden head upon his shoulder, Barbara told Crosby all that she had feared, all her doubts. There were so many things to make her certain that he was "Galloping Hermit."
"I know," he answered. "It has suited my purpose sometimes while I have been helping men to escape out of the West Country to let my enemies suppose that I was; but it never occurred to me that you would think so. Now I understand some of your words which troubled me, hurt me, almost. Are you content to take the way with me, dearest? I have not forgotten my promise."