Lord Desborough had ample opportunity for ascertaining this fact. He had seen her risk her life for Seymour's own. He could never forget the glorious picture she made standing across the prostrate form of that young man, pistol in hand, keeping the mob at bay, never wavering, never faltering, clear-eyed, supreme. He would be almost willing to die to have her do the like for him. He could still hear the echo of that bitter cry,--"Seymour! Seymour!"--which rang through the house when they had dragged her away. These things were not pleasant reminiscences, but, like most other unpleasant memories, they would not down. In spite of all this, however, he had allowed himself--nay, his permission he vowed had not been asked--to fall violently in love with this little colonial maiden, and a country maiden at that! Not being psychologically inclined, he had never attempted to analyze her charm or to explain his sensations. Realizing the fact, and being young and therefore hopeful, he had not allowed himself to despair. Really, he had some claims upon her. Had he not interfered, she would have been murdered that night in the dining-room. He had earned the gratitude then and there of her father, and of herself as well; and he had earned more of it too when he had shot dead a certain brutal marauding blackguard by the name of Johnson, at the first convenient opportunity, having received incidentally, in return for his message of death, a bullet in his own breast to remind him that there are always two persons and two chances in a duel. A part of the debt of the Wiltons had been paid by the assiduous and solicitous care with which they--Katharine chiefly, of course--had nursed him through the long and dangerous illness consequent upon his wound. It was his interest which had prevented further ill treatment of them by the brutal and tyrannous Dunmore, and, had Katharine so elected, would have secured her freedom. She had, however, to Desborough's great delight, chosen to accompany her father to England, where he was to be sent as a prisoner of high political consequence.