“An outcast like yourself,” answered the shadow; “a fellow-sufferer at the hands of the very family to which you owe your misfortunes.” “Who are you?” I could only whisper again. “I am George Rowe,” it said. “Do you remember me? We have met once--an ineffaceable impression to me. I have followed your career since; unknown to you, have traced you by the flowers in your footsteps--yes, even to that wicked place, and your flight from it. I have watched you since from the woods below; have stood at this door at night and listened to your breathing till I maddened; have sorely bided my time, seeking to speak to you. I have tracked the honest tracker, your good servant and saviour; and, while I applaud his devotion, must warn you against the equivocal position in which your further acceptance of that devotion may place you.” I could not see his face, but only the dusk of a comely form, as it stood now before me. Well could I recall, indeed, “the good-humoured gentleman in the grey coat,” who had once so espoused my childish cause, and earned thereby the hatred of his kinsmen. My confidence was returning to me with my wits. “You are very considerate for us,” I said deridingly. “Do you come as madam your sister’s emissary, since you are so particular for my character?” “Alas!” he said, “you do well to doubt me, being so related. But I am an outlaw from all that house’s influence and consideration.” “An outlaw--you!” I murmured. “Ay,” he answered; “ruined, menaced, and driven forth to nurse my wrongs in hiding.” “Why, where?” I asked. “To the woods,” he answered, “like Robin Hood.” “O, an attractive asylum, sir, for distressed ladies,” I said. He replied, “Maid Marian thought so.” “Perhaps she had an attachment there,” said I. “I miss the application to myself.” He laughed softly. “Whether we fly from fear, or fly to love, we fly,” he said. “You may hold your enemies too cheap, not knowing that my lord makes interest with his sister, and for his own purposes, to subsidise your Dr. Peel. For the sake of the secrets of the prison-house, he will not leave her solus to the hue and cry. You have planted two dragon-heads in place of the one you severed.” I shrunk before him. “What do you mean? How do you know?” “By the token,” he said, “that he destined me to your fate, and I answered with the better part of valour, which you will be wise to imitate.” “To-morrow,” I muttered; “we had already decided.” “That is not all, nor enough,” he urged. “You may be Una, _with_ a rhinoceros, and that is not enough. My lord rides a thunder-bolt. It is not enough to flee him; you must vanish--be no more.”