“Oh, Segwuna, I thought that you had been lost or killed or that something terrible had happened to you. You never stayed away so long before. I have been looking for you every day, and you did not return. “Now that you have returned and you have not changed,--you still love me?--I cry for joy. But then, Segwuna, I have a secret to tell you, and you must not laugh at me, for then I shall think that you do not love me. “Do you know,” continued Mollie, “that the day that Mr. Barclugh was here, and we were talking at breakfast about the King’s courtiers, I happened to repeat those lines of Shakespeare: ‘Had I but served my God with half the zeal ‘I serv’d my king, he would not in mine age ‘Have left me naked to mine enemies.’ “When I had finished these lines, the eyes of Mr. Barclugh gazed at me, and such a light shone out of them, I have not been able to rid myself of the look that he gave me. “Segwuna, what does it mean? I am troubled by day in my thought and by night in my dreams. “I could not find you, my darling, to let you know what troubled me. I have been unhappy every minute since then.” “Well, my sweetheart,” replied Segwuna, “I shall pray to the Great Spirit to protect you from harm; but there can be only one interpretation of what you have told me,--it means that Mr. Barclugh is in love with you.” A thunderstorm had arisen from the southwest, while the two girls were occupied in their heart to heart communion, and the two ran into the old mill for protection. The terrific wind and downpour of rain shook the old mill. When the sharp bolts of lightning and the heavy crash of thunder seemed very near, Mollie clutched Segwuna by the arm, and hung to her spasmodically, as fear seemed to multiply in her already much agitated breast. When Segwuna turned at last to leave for her mother’s lodge, she kissed Mollie on the cheek, and whispered gently: “Segwuna will pray to her Great Spirit to protect her sweetheart from all harm. Good night, darling.” CHAPTER XXIX Barclugh took his meals regularly at the Boar’s Head Tavern, and lived industriously attending to his plot, and to his speculations in privateering. He was busy organizing his bank, the capital of which was mostly subscribed and whose charter was drawn and placed before the Council of Pennsylvania for legal authority to do business. The corporation was to be known as the Bank of North America; Thomas Milling was to be its first President. Every detail was copied as closely after the corporation of the Bank of England as possible; that was Barclugh’s plan. If Barclugh had confined himself to his plot with Arnold and to his plans in financiering, he would have been better off. But the allurements of commerce had also attracted his attention.