"He would never have left the house alive, had I known it before," he cried savagely. "As it is, I'll ride after him as soon as day comes, and call him to an accounting for his villany,--the dastardly scoundrel! And Mary--oh, my wife, how could you keep it from me till now?" Her heart sank at this, the first note of reproof or displeasure his voice had ever held for her. "You must remember, Jack," she pleaded, "how sorely I was distressed to know what to do, for I had given my promise to Dot, and could not break it. And you must know as well that it was not until this very evening that I learned of the matter." "True," he admitted. "But"--persistently--"there was the ruby ring, when the child was first taken ill; how could you keep that from me?" He spoke reproachfully, but his voice was growing softer, and his anger was now gone, for Mary was sobbing, her head against his breast. And this was as strange to him as his harsh words had been to her. "I'll never--never keep any matter from you again," she protested brokenly. "I promise it, Jack, for now I see it was very wrong." "There--there, sweetheart," he said soothingly, as he stroked her bright hair,--"'t is all well for us now, and will ever be, if you but keep to what you say. But Dot--poor little Dot!" And his anger came again. "Oh, that villain, that cursed villain,--but he shall reckon with me for this outrage! And 't is well for that scoundrel Weeks that he's been made to flee the town for his seditious sentiments and preachings." "But," Mary explained, "Dot said he was forced to do it, at peril of his life; that he--the Englishman--held a pistol to his head and swore he'd shoot him if he refused." "Pah," said Jack, contemptuously, "he'd never have dared go so far as that. Master Weeks is but a poor coward." Then he asked quickly, "Think you, Mary, that Dot is telling our father aught of the matter now?" "I cannot say," was his wife's irresolute answer. "I fear so, and yet I cannot but hope so, as well,--for how can another ever tell him?" "Aye," groaned the young man; "it will come nigh to killing him." But Dorothy had not told her father anything. No sooner had he come to her bedside than her eyes filled with a contented light, and slipping her hand within his close clasp, she fell tranquilly asleep, too stunned and numbed by physical weakness and contending emotions,--her senses too dulled from the effects of Aunt Lettice's draught--to find words wherein to pour out her heart to him. He left her sleeping quietly, and returned to those below; and soon thereafter the seizure came, and he fell back in his chair, speechless, with closed eyes and inert limbs. It was Mary and Aunt Lettice who ministered to him, with the help of his son and the faithful Tyntie, who was summoned from Dorothy's room, where she had been sent to watch the sleeping girl.