"You are wrong, madam," he said, with an[Pg 252] appearance of respect, and even of sympathy colouring the tender voice he employed. "There is no ship in sight. If there were she would probably prove an enemy's cruiser which must end my dream of happiness by our consignment to a French prison. You are in the hands of a man who loves you, who adores you, who is indeed taking his chance of the gibbet to win you. Trust in me. As my wife you shall be faithfully returned to your father, who will not condemn an action which merely anticipates the sanction I was looking forward to when he gave me command of this ship, and brought me by this stroke of goodness closer to you.",
His arm about the trunk of a tree, he laughed softly, as his eyes, sweeping the checker-board of autumn's glories, rested at last on the grove of coniferous trees. So that was the haunted grove? That dark, silent, spicy bit of isolated loneliness far below was the spot he had so feared! But he feared it no longer. She had cured him of that. She had said that fear of the supernatural was foolish; and of course she was right.,
She had not intended to take this walk. At Old Harbour House dinner was served at two o'clock, and if she was not punctual Aunt Caroline would grow alarmed, and probably send the coachman on horseback in search of her. But it was only just noon, and there was time enough for her to arrive home at the dinner-hour, and also to make this little diversion to escape Mr Lawrence, who, she suspected, would have forced his company upon her even in this further walk had not she[Pg 46] excited his curiosity by saying that his father was waiting to see him. He was not too far gone in liquor to understand that something of significance to him lay in her reference to Sir William, and when presently she was upon the river-side footpath and took a cautious peep over her shoulder, she observed him through the trees mounting the lane and walking somewhat fast..
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