“You'll not go with us?” Sally asked again, as they reached the corner, and the loungers on the porch of the Unicorn Tavern beyond, perceiving Gilbert, sprang from their seats to ask for news of the chase. “Sally, I cannot!” he answered. “Good-night!” Joe and Jake Fairthorn rushed up with a whoop, and before Gilbert could satisfy the curiosity of the tavern-idlers, the former sat behind Sally, on the old mare, with his face to her tail, while Jake, prevented by Miss Deane's riding-whip from attempting the same performance, capered behind the horses and kept up their spirits by flinging handfuls of sand. Gilbert found another group in “the store”--farmers or their sons who had come in for a supply of groceries, or the weekly mail, and who sat in a sweltering atmosphere around the roaring stove. They, too, had heard of the chase, and he was obliged to give them as many details as possible while his quarter of tea was being weighed, after which he left them to supply the story from the narrative of Mr. Joel Ferris, who, a new-comer announced, had just alighted at the Unicorn, a little drunk, and in a very bad humor. “Where's Barton?” Gilbert heard some one ask of Ferris, as he mounted. “In his skin!” was the answer, “unless he's got into that fellow Fortune's. They're as thick as two pickpockets!” Gilbert rode down the hill, and allowed his horse to plod leisurely across the muddy level, regardless of the deepening twilight. He was powerfully moved by some suppressed emotion. The muscles of his lips twitched convulsively, and there was a hot surge and swell somewhere in his head, as of tears about to overrun their secret reservoir. But they failed to surprise him, this time. As the first drops fell from his dark eyelashes, he loosed the rein and gave the word to his horse. Over the ridge, along the crest, between dusky thorn-hedges, he swept at full gallop, and so, slowly sinking towards the fair valley which began to twinkle with the lights of scattered farms to the eastward, he soon reached the last steep descent, and saw the gray gleam of his own barn below him. By this time his face was sternly set. He clinched his hands, and muttered to himself-- “It will almost kill me to ask, but I must know, and--and she must tell.” It was dark now. As he climbed again from the bottom of the hill towards the house, a figure on the summit was drawn indistinctly against the sky, unconscious that it was thus betrayed. But it vanished instantly, and then he groaned-- “God help me! I cannot ask.” CHAPTER III. MARY POTTER AND HER SON. While Gilbert was dismounting at the gate leading into his barn-yard, he was suddenly accosted by a boyish voice:-- “Got back, have you?”