nt lover."

Cynthia smiled upon him.

"It is heroic of you, uncle."

"There, there," he grumbled, "I shall do my best to find the laggard,
lest those pretty eyes should weep away their beauty."

Gregory's glance reproved this sneer of Joseph's, whereupon Joseph drew
close to him:

"Broken-hearted, is she not?" he muttered, to which Gregory returned no
answer.

An hour later, as Joseph climbed into his saddle, he turned to his
brother again, and directing his eyes upon the girl, who stood patting
the glossy neck of his nag:

"Come, now," said he, "you see that matters are as I said."

"And yet," replied Gregory sternly, "I hope to see you return with the
boy. It will be better so."

Joseph shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. Then, taking leave of his
brother and his niece, he rode out with two grooms at his heels, and
took the road South.

CHAPTER XII. THE HOUSE THAT WAS ROLAND MARLEIGH'S

It was high noon next day, and Gregory Ashburn was taking the air upon
the noble terrace of Castle Marleigh, when the beat of hoofs, rapidly
approaching up the avenue, arrested his attention. He stopped in his
walk, and, turning, sought to discover who came. His first thought was
of his brother; his second, of Kenneth. Through the half-denuded trees
he made out two mounted figures, riding side by side; and from the fact
of there being two, he adduced that this could not be Joseph returning.

Even as he waited he was joined by Cynthia, who took her stand beside
him, and voiced the inquiry that was in his mind. But her father could
no more than answer that he hoped it might be Kenneth.

Then the horsemen passed from behind the screen of trees and came into
the clearing before the terrace, and unto the waiting glances of Ashburn
and his daughter was revealed a curiously bedraggled and ill-assorted
pair. The one riding slightly in advance looked like a Puritan of the
meaner sort, in his battered steeple-hat and cloak of rusty black. The
other was closely wrapped in a red mantle, uptilted behind by a sword of
prodigious length, and for all that his broad, grey hat was unadorned
by any feather, it was set at a rakish, ruffling, damn-me angle that
pronounced him no likely comrade for the piously clad youth beside him.

But beneath that brave red cloak--alack!--as was presently seen when
they dismounted, that gentleman was in a sorry plight. He wore a leather
jerkin, so cut and soiled that any groom might have disda