gh, what with his
concern at events and the extra quantity of flour upon his face through
sticking so closely to business that day.

'Well, John; Bob has told you all, of course? A queer, strange,
perplexing thing, isn't it? I can't make it out at all. There must be
something wrong in the woman, or it couldn't have happened. I haven't
been so upset for years.'

'Nor have I. I wouldn't it should have happened for all I own in the
world,' said the dragoon. 'Have you spoke to Anne Garland to-day--or has
anybody been talking to her?'

'Festus Derriman rode by half-an-hour ago, and talked to her over the
hedge.'

John guessed the rest, and, after standing on the threshold in silence
awhile, walked away towards the camp.

All this time his brother Robert had been hastening along in pursuit of
the woman who had withdrawn from the scene to avoid the exposure and
complete overthrow which would have resulted had she remained. As the
distance lengthened between himself and the mill, Bob was conscious of
some cooling down of the excitement that had prompted him to set out; but
he did not pause in his walk till he had reached the head of the river
which fed the mill-stream. Here, for some indefinite reason, he allowed
his eyes to be attracted by the bubbling spring whose waters never failed
or lessened, and he stopped as if to look longer at the scene; it was
really because his mind was so absorbed by John's story.

The sun was warm, the spot was a pleasant one, and he deposited his
bundle and sat down. By degrees, as he reflected, first on John's view
and then on his own, his convictions became unsettled; till at length he
was so balanced between the impulse to go on and the impulse to go back,
that a puff of wind either way would have been well-nigh sufficient to
decide for him. When he allowed John's story to repeat itself in his
ears, the reasonableness and good sense of his advice seemed beyond
question. When, on the other hand, he thought of his poor Matilda's
eyes, and her, to him, pleasant ways, their charming arrangements to
marry, and her probable willingness still, he could hardly bring himself
to do otherwise than follow on the road at the top of his speed.

This strife of thought was so well maintained that sitting and standing,
he remained on the borders of the spring till the shadows had stretched
out eastwards, and the chance of overtaking Matilda had grown
considerably less. Still he did not posi