There was an instant’s pause, then Millington said more coldly, “I’ll pay the man,” and led the way from the house. Hugh, following behind like a chidden child, saw his uncle go to Garrett, who waited with the horses just outside the gate, and saw him fee the trooper; by the man’s face he guessed it was done liberally, but he knew the fact that the money came from another’s hand must always lower him in the fellow’s eyes. Dreading to meet the trooper’s curious look, he was lingering an instant on the garden walk, feigning to adjust his boot-tops, when he heard behind him some one call his name. He would not look up till there came a touch on his arm, and he must raise his eyes to meet Lois’s gaze. “I wanted to thank you, Hugh,” she said gently. “You need not.” “And I wanted to ask your pardon, if I hurt you. Truly, I will never believe you have done anything that is base, whatever they say. Prithee, forgive me, Hugh.” “I should ask you to forgive it that I was so surly,” he hesitated. “And—and next time I meet you, Lois, I’ll have mended my manners, so you need not be dismayed. Farewell now.” He looked her frankly in the eyes as he spoke, then bent a little and kissed her hand. He came out at the gate more briskly than he had hoped, and there, by the horses, found Peregrine and Lieutenant Millington in talk. “When you go back to Thomas Oldesworth tell him from me he should have taught you that a white flag protects the bearer,” he heard Millington say, and he noted Peregrine had fixed covetous eyes on Bayard. Indeed, as Hugh swung into the saddle, his cousin broke out, “You’ll pay me for that horse one day, sirrah.” But Hugh deliberately turned his back upon his bluster, while he bade his uncle a second farewell, then waved his hat to Lois, who still stood among the roses in the garden, and so headed his horse away from Newick. The shadows of the two horsemen showed long in the late afternoon sun, and lengthened and blended at last into the gray of the twilight. Frogs piped to them in the dusk as they threaded their way through a bit of bog land, and after that they went a long piece in silence under the wakeful stars. Hugh suffered Bayard go slowly, while he felt the pleasant night air upon his face and harked to the hoof-beats, muffled by the yielding road, till at length a light upon a distant hill showed where Woodstead lay. At that the horses freshened their pace, and, with a good flourish, they cantered in at the gate of the manor house and pulled up at the stables. Bayard once made comfortable, Hugh went slowly back to the house, where he found the officers, with their coats off and the table well stored with glasses, loitering in the west parlor. “So you’re back, are you, sir?” Butler greeted him. “Well, now you’ve had a safe-conduct and all at your disposal, is there anything else you’d command of me?”