For the moment both forgot the danger behind them. The intoxication of an ideal and self-forgetting trust--a merger of all else in tenderness--flooded their souls and passed back and forth between them in their mutual glances. Then came that pursuing shout again, much nearer than before, and with a shock the two lovers remembered their true plight. Sir Guy reined in his steed. "Halt--halt, Mary!" he commanded. "We must conceal us here in this dell till that these fellows pass us. Then back to London by the way we came. There is no other road." Obedient now in her turn, Phoebe drew rein and followed her lover up the bed of a small stream which crossed the road at this point. Behind a curtain of trees they waited, and ere long saw their two pursuers dart past them and disappear in a cloud of dust down the road. "They will stop at the next dwelling to ask news of us, and thus learn of our evasion," said Guy. "The chase has but begun. Come, sweet, let us hasten southward again." Darkness had now begun to fall in earnest, and as the two fugitives passed the Peacock Inn, no one saw them. They were soon near enough to the city gate to find many houses on either hand, and Sir Guy deemed it wiser to move at a reasonable pace, for fear of attracting suspicion in a neighborhood already aroused by rumors of the man-hunt which had begun. They could count upon the obscurity to conceal their identity. They had not proceeded far beyond the inn when they met a party of travellers on horseback, one of whom uttered a pleasant "Good-even!" "Good-even!" said Phoebe, thinking only of due courtesy. "What the good jere!" cried a voice from the rear of the group. "What dost thou here, Poll?" "My father!" exclaimed Phoebe, in terror. "Hush!" whispered Sir Guy, putting his hand upon her bridle. "Ride forward at an easy gait until I give example of haste." They trotted quietly past the greater number of the group until a dark figure approached and a voice in the gloom said, severely: "What dost thou here? Who rides with thee, lass?" Sir Guy now leaned forward and spurred his horse, leaping away into the darkness without a word. In equal silence Phoebe followed his example and galloped headlong close behind her lover. "Help, ho!" yelled old Sir Isaac. "'Tis the traitor Fenton, with my daughter! After them--stop them--a Burton--a Burton!" and, mad with excitement, the angry father set off in hot pursuit. With one accord the others wheeled about and joined in the chase, uttering cries and imprecations that rang through the country for a mile around. "Now have we need of speed!" said Sir Guy, as they galloped together toward London, whose walls were now visible in the distance. "Soon will the whole country join the hue-and-cry. The watch will meet us at the gate." "'Twere better, were it not," Phoebe suggested, "that we turn to the left and make a circuit into the Aldersgate?"