"A man let drive at me!" breathed Ruyven, in rapture. "I was not hit, cousin! A man let drive at me, and I heard the bullet!" "Nonsense!" said Sir George, mischievously; "you heard a bumble-bee!" "He always says that," retorted Ruyven, looking at me. "I know it was a bullet, for it went zo-o-zip-tsing-g! right past my ear; and Sergeant West shouted, 'Cut him down, sir!' ... But another trooper did that. However, I rode like the devil!" "Which way?" inquired Sir George, in pretended anxiety. And we all laughed. "It's good to see you back all safe and sound," said Sir George, warmly. "Sir Lupus will be delighted and the children half crazed. You should hear them talk of their hero!" "Dorothy will be glad, too," said Ruyven. "You'll be in time for the wedding." I strove to smile, facing Sir George with an effort. His face, in the full sunlight, seemed haggard and careworn, and the light had died out in his eyes. "For the wedding," he repeated. "We are to be wedded to-morrow. You did not know that, did you?" "Yes; I did know it. Dorothy wrote me," I said. A numbed feeling crept over me; I scarce heard the words I uttered when I wished him happiness. He held my proffered hand a second, then dropped it listlessly, thanking me for my good wishes in a low voice. There was a vague, troubled expression in his eyes, a strange lack of feeling. The thought came to me like a stab that perhaps he had learned that the woman he was to wed did not love him. "Did Dorothy expect me?" I asked, miserably. "I think not," said Sir George. "She believed you meant to follow Arnold to Stanwix," broke in Ruyven. "I should have done it! I regard General Arnold as the most magnificent soldier of the age!" he added. "I was ordered to Varick Manor," I said, looking at Sir George. "Otherwise I might have followed Arnold. As it is I cannot stay for the wedding; I must report at Stillwater, leaving by nine o'clock in the morning." "Lord, Ormond, what a fire-eater you have become!" he said, smiling from his abstraction. "Are you ready to mount Ruyven's nag and come home to a good bed and a glass of something neat?" "Let Ruyven ride," I said; "I need the walk, Sir George." "Need the walk!" he exclaimed. "Have you not had walks enough?--and your moccasins and buckskins in rags!" But I could not endure to ride; a nerve-racking restlessness was on me, a desire for movement, for utter exhaustion, so that I could no longer have even strength to think. Ruyven, protesting, climbed into his dragoon-saddle; Sir George walked beside him and I with Sir George. Long, soft August lights lay across the leafy road; the blackberries were in heavy fruit; scarlet thimble-berries, over-ripe, dropped from their pithy cones as we brushed the sprays with our sleeves. Sir George was saying: "No, we have nothing more to fear from McDonald's gang, but a scout came in, three days since, bringing word of McCraw's outlaws who have appeared in the west--"