John Devereux and Hugh Knollys, returning from the town, met them just within the open gate, and drew to one side, watching them with scowling brows as they dashed past; and the young officer turned in his saddle to glance over his shoulder, as if something in the former's face had caught his attention. "What did those Britishers want here, father?" the son asked, as he and Hugh came up the steps, leaving their horses with Leet and Pashar. "He would seem to wish to assure us of his courtesy and good-will; and when I declined these, he demanded to see my son, whom he accused of playing a boyish prank upon a King's officer, and threatened him with irons, should he catch the rogue." All eyes were now turned upon Dorothy, who laid her blushing face against her father's arm as she stood clasping it. Jack muttered something under his breath; and Hugh, his face alight with mischief, said, "May his search take up all the attention of himself and his soldiers, which will be all the better for us." Then stretching out his hand to Dorothy, he said with a sudden change of manner, "Will you shake hands, Dorothy?" "What for?" she asked, still clinging to her father's arm. "As my way of thanking you that I am a free man this morning, and not, perchance, in irons myself, and on the road to the Governor, at Salem." She laid her small hand in his broad palm, and the look he gave her as his fingers closed over it seemed to make her uncomfortable. "It was very little I did," she declared quietly, drawing her hand away. "So it may seem to you," he said gravely. "But had it not been done, the things that might have followed would show you otherwise." In the afternoon the four young people set out to ride over to Hugh's place, where a widowed mother was anxiously expecting the arrival of her boy--and only child. Jack, for reasons now well understood, kept close to Mary's bridle-rein; so it befell that Dorothy and Hugh were thrown upon one another's society more intimately than for some time heretofore. As they rode leisurely along the Salem turnpike toward their destination, which lay away from the town, the young man exclaimed suddenly, "I don't believe another girl living would dare do such a thing, Dorothy, as you did last night!" "Do cease prattling of last night," she said impatiently. "I am sick to death hearing of it." "Are you?" And Hugh's laughing eyes widened with sober surprise. "I see no call for you to be so." "I did not ask that you should," was the tart answer, a wilful toss of her head accompanying the sharp words. "Why, Dorothy, whatever ails you?" And he looked more surprised than hurt at this new phase of his quondam playfellow's disposition. She did not reply; and Hugh, seeing a glitter of tears in her eyes, said nothing more. And so they plodded along in utter silence; the two ahead of them seeming to find no need for haste, and conversing earnestly, as though greatly entertained by each other's company.