enemies have passed the word that I am here as the Baron de
Kalb's paid spy. That is no mistake; 'tis a lie cut out of whole cloth.
I came here straight from New Berne, and back of that from London and
the Continent, and scarcely know the buff and blue by sight. But I am
Carolina born, dear lady; and this King George's governor hanged my
father. So, when God gives me strength to mount and ride--"

"Now who is fierce?" she cried. And then, like lightning: "Will you
raise a band of rebels and come and take your own again?"

"You know I will not," I protested, so gravely that she laughed again,
though now there were tears, from what well-spring of emotion I knew
not, in her eyes.

"Oh, mercy me! Have you never one little grain of imagination, Monsieur
John? You are too monstrous literal for our poor jesting age." Then she
sobered quickly and added this: "And yet I fear that this is what my
father fears."

I did not tell her that he might have feared it once with reason, or
that now the houseless dog she petted should have life of me though mine
enemy should sick him on. But I did say her father had no present cause
to dread me.

"He thinks he has. And surely there is cause enough," she added.

I smiled, and, loving her the more for her fairness, must smile again.

"Nay, you have changed all that, dear lady. Truly, I did at first fly
out at him and all concerned for what has made me a poor pensioner in my
father's house--or rather in the house that was my father's. But that
was while the hurt was new. I have been a soldier of fortune too long to
think overmuch of the loss of Appleby Hundred. 'Twas my father's,
certainly; but 'twas never mine."

"And yet--and yet it should be yours, John Ireton." She said it bravely,
with uplifted face and eloquent eyes that one who ran might read.

"'Tis good and true of you to say so, little one; but there be two sides
to that, as well. So my father's acres come at last to you and Richard
Jennifer, I shall be well content, I do assure you, Margery."

She sprang up from her low seat and went to stand in the window-bay.
After a time she turned and faced me once again, and the warm blood was
in cheek and neck, and there was a soft light in her eyes to make them
shine like stars.

"Then you would have me marry Richard Jennifer?" she asked.

'Twas but a little word that honor bade me say, and yet it choked me and
I could not say it.

"Dick would have you, Margery; and Dick is my