sh enough to wish it were true; as it is
not. I know whereof I speak."

"No," I denied, struggling to my feet; "it has been yours from the
first, Dick. I am but a sorry interloper."

For a moment he was all solicitude to know if my head would let me
stand; but when I showed him I was no more than clumsily dizzy from the
effects of the blow, he went on.

"I say I know, and I do, Jack. She has refused me again."

I groaned in spirit. I knew it must have come to that. Yet I would ask
when and where.

"'Twas on our last day's riding," he went on; "after we had had your
note saying you would undertake a mission for Colonel Davie."

I took two steps and groped for the horse's bridle rein.

"Did she tell you why she must refuse you?"

He helped me find the rein for my hand and the stirrup for my foot.

"There was no 'why' but the one--she does not love me."

"But I say she does, Dick; and I, too, know whereof I speak."

He flung me into the saddle as a strong man might toss a boy, and I
understood how that saying of mine had gone into his blood.

"Then there must be some barrier that I know not of," he said. Whereupon
he put hand to head as one who tries to remember. "Stay; did you not say
there was a barrier, Jack?--when we were wrestling with death in the
Indian fires? Or did I dream it?"

"You did not dream it. But you were telling me what she said."

"Oh, yes; 'twas little enough. She cut me off at the first word as if
my speaking were a mortal sin. And when I would have tried again, she
gave me a look to make me wince and broke out crying as if her heart
would burst."

I steadied myself as I could by the saddle horn and waited till he was
up and we were moving on. Then I would say: "Truly, there is a barrier,
Richard; if I promise you that I am going to Charlotte to remove it once
for all, will you trust me and go about your affair with General Gates?"

"Trust you, Jack? Who am I that I should do aught else? When I am cool
and sane, I'm none so cursed selfish; I could even give her over to you
with a free hand, could I but hear her say she loves you as I would have
her love me. But when I am mad.... Ah, God only knows the black blood
there is in the heart at such times."

We rode on together in silence after that, and were come to the bank of
the river before we spoke again. But here Dick went back to my warning,
saying, whilst we let the horses drink: "'Tis patrolled on the other
bank, you say?"

"I