She whisked out of the room, and I felt myself rising from the floor, so strong was my impulse to spring upon the scoundrel and choke him, but when I straightened up, he was no longer in the room. I hastened to my young master, whom I knew was waiting for me up stairs, and I almost flung myself into the room. There he sat near a table with two pistols lying upon it. He strove to control himself, but he was biting his lip as he looked up at me. "Well," he said. "It is well," I replied. "Out with it--tell me. What did she do?" "She called him a puppy," I replied. And then I told him all that had passed, and he listened, motionless, with his hand lying across the two pistols. CHAPTER XI. Early in the morning I arose and kindled a fire and sat beside it, waiting for my master to awake. The day was still and cold, and what was unusual with us, a dark fog lay low on the land, like the skeleton of night left hanging in the air of dawn. Master turned over and I looked round at him. He did not notice me; he lay upon his back with one arm under his head, his great brown eyes wide open, a graceful curl of hair upon his classic brow. A piece of poplar kindling snapped--and he looked at me. "Dan," he said, rising up, and propping his shoulders against the head-board, "what was it you said last night about John Marston?" "I repeated what Miss May said; that she was going to marry him." "Why, he hasn't been here very often." "But that doesn't seem to have made much difference," I replied. He smiled at me. "Love comes once and is ever present afterward," he said, half musingly. And then rousing himself he added: "I am so much pleased to know that she is beyond the artifices of that nimble wolf that the prospect of her marriage with anyone else seems almost a blessing. But I wonder what father will say. I don't know but that he may look at it very much as I do, though I don't suppose he had an inkling that Bates was striving to win her." "And how about your mother?" I asked. I was looking straight at him, and I thought that his face darkened. "I could never understand her liking for him," he said. "Neither can we understand a woman's liking for any man," I ventured to suggest, and he laughed as he got out of bed. He pulled off the snow-white counterpane and wrapped it about his shoulders, and stood before me a Greek poet, ennobled with the pride of a conquered prize. When we went down to the breakfast table, Dr. Bates was not in his accustomed place, but Miss May was there and her face was as bright as if nothing had happened. "I wonder why the doctor doesn't come on?" said Old Miss. And then she turned to me: "Dan, step up to his room and tell him that breakfast is ready." "I object," Young Master cried, setting himself back from the table, and Old Master gave him a sharp look. "Robert, what do you mean, sir? Object to what?"