Esther looked at me gratefully, and then put a caressing arm about me. "All very well, Miss," said Mrs. O'Flaherty gloomily. "But how will it be if Sir Rupert meets us with a blunderbuss?" "Oh, he won't do that!" said I, laughing, though in my heart I wasn't at all sure. "But if he did, what would you do, Maggie?" "Stan' her ground," answered her husband for her. "She's a great Trojan, Miss, let alone that the foster-son's more to her than her own flesh and blood." Our way lay through by-roads and coppices, and we met no one to wonder at our strange little procession. Presently the donkey-cart had to part company from us, and to meet us again after a detour, because the road was under water, and we could only pass by taking to the fields. This left Esther and me together, for Mrs. O'Flaherty trudged the lanes with her husband and her son. "It's an odd way of doing it, Essie," said I. "It is, Hilda, but the only way." "I'd rather have driven up in a carriage in broad daylight and taken him away," said I. "Supposing Sir Rupert had shut the gates in our faces?" "There would be ways of making him open them." "And a pretty bit of scandal for the county, where there is already too much scandal about my Harry's grandfather." "I wish the General had been here," I said uneasily. "He could not have helped, Hilda. Don't you see that the thing is best done quietly?" "Does your godmother know?" "She knows I am with you this morning. That is all." "She would approve?" "Surely. Do you know her and doubt? I only did not tell her because she is helpless and could not be with us. I shall go to her straight and tell her as soon as my Harry is safe under his foster-mother's wing at the Inch Farm." "He will be safe there?" "Safer than anywhere in the world,--except with me." "And afterwards, Esther?" "I will marry him as soon as ever it can be arranged. My godmother will help me, and I think Mr. Benson would make things smooth for us." "What if you find your Harry very ill?" She trembled, and for a moment a shadow fell upon her radiant face. Then it lifted again. "I look to find him ill. When he is so helpless that he has had to remain in the clutches of those miscreants for very weakness, he must be ill indeed. But there is the more reason for hastening our marriage. Happiness will make him well." "I think you are right, Esther. But how will it be if Lady O'Brien and Aline take the prudent view, and think you should wait till he is stronger?" "They will not," she said patiently; "but if they did I should still know I was right. If he were stronger I could wait for years." "You will be poor, Essie." "Very," she said with a happy smile. "Or at least Harry says that the three hundred a year he has from his mother will mean poverty." "And Sir Rupert, they say, has untold gold laid up in Castle Angry," I said regretfully. "Brandon money," said Esther, "the fruits of fraud and treachery. We would not touch a penny of it."