"That will do, Reynolds; you can go."
"Papa, I have a commission for you in England."
Reynolds's face fell. "Any—any message for my master, my lady?"
"No. Oh—stop—yes. You may tell him," said Maggie, with a heightened color, smiling, "you may tell him I am about to be married."
CHAPTER XV.
LOVE LAUGHS AT LOCKSMITHS.
In the centre of its wide waste of barren hills, huge granite outcroppings and swampy valleys, the gloomy prison of Dartmoor stood wrapped in mist one dismal morning in the March following the Royalist outbreak. Its two centuries of unloved existence in the midst of a wild land and fitful climate had seared every wall-tower and gateway with lines and patches of decay and discoloration. Originally built of brown stone, the years had deepened the tint almost to blackness in the larger stretches of outer wall and unwindowed gable.
On this morning the dark walls dripped with the weeping atmosphere, and the voice of the huge prison bell in the main yard sounded distant and strange like a storm-bell in a fog at sea.