“I beg your pardon, Captain Hamlin,” said Desire, with an engaging smile. “I was too hasty. I suppose I was angry. I see you were not to blame. If you will now please tell your men that I am not to be interfered with again, I will make another start for Pittsfield.” “No, not again,” he replied slowly. “But you promised me,” she said, with rising apprehension, nervously clasping the edge of her cloak with her fingers as she spoke. “You promised me on the word of a duke you know,” and she made another feeble attempt at a smile. “I promised you,” replied he, “I don't know why I was so mad. I was bewitched. I did not break the promise, but I will not make it again. God had pity on me, and brought you back. What have I suffered the last hour, and shall I let you go again? Never! never! None shall pluck you out of my hand. “Don't let me terrify you, my darling,” he went on passionately, in a softened voice, as she changed countenance and recoiled before him in evident fright. “I will not hurt you. I would die sooner than hurt a hair of your head.” He tried to take her hand, and then as she snatched it away, he caught the hem of her cloak, and kneeling quickly, raised it with a gesture of boundless tenderness and reverence, to his lips. She had shrunk back to the wall, and looked down on him in wide-eyed, speechless terror, evidently no longer thinking of anything but escape. “Oh, let me go home. Let me go home. I shall scream out if you don't let me go,” she cried. He rose to his feet, walked quickly across the room and back, and then having in some measure subdued his agitation, replied: “Certainly, you shall go home. It is dark; I will go with you,” and they walked together across to the store without speaking. Returning, Perez met Abe, and taking him by the hand, gave it a tremendous grip, but said nothing. Whatever resentment Squire Edwards cherished against Perez on account of Desire's recapture and return, he was far too shrewd to allow it to appear. He simply ignored the whole episode and was more affable than ever. Whenever he met the young man, he had something pleasant to say, and was always inviting him into the store to take a drop when he passed. Meanwhile, however, so far as the latter's opportunities of seeing or talking with Desire were concerned, she might just as well have been in Pittsfield, so strictly did she keep the house. A week or ten days passed thus, every day adding fuel to his impatience, and he had already begun to entertain plans worthy of a brigand or a kidnapper, when circumstances presented an opportunity of which he made shrewd profit.