old mill his grandfather had built almost a hundred years
before, and in the churchyard he had found the graves and read the
inscriptions that recorded the virtues of certain dead and gone
Carringtons. It had all seemed a very respectable link with the past.

He was on his way to Fayetteville, where he intended to spend the night,
and perhaps a day or two in looking around, when the meeting with
Betty and Murrell occurred. As Murrell disappeared in the direction of
Balaam's, Carrington took a spiteful kick at the unoffending coin, and
strode off down the Fayetteville pike. But the girl's face remained with
him. It was a face he would like to see again. He wondered who she was,
and if she lived in the big house on the other road, the house beyond
the red gate which Charley Balaam had told him was called the Barony.

He was still thinking of the girl when he ate his supper that night
at Cleggett's Tavern. Later, in the bar, he engaged his host in idle
gossip. Mr. Cleggett knew all about the Barony and its owner, Nat
Ferris. Ferris was a youngish man, just married. Carrington experienced
a quick sinking of the heart. A fleeting sense of humor succeeded--had
he interfered between man and wife? But surely if this had been the case
the girl would not have spoken as she had.

He wound Mr. Cleggett up with sundry pegs of strong New England rum. He
had met a gentleman and lady on the road that day; he wondered, as he
toyed with his glass, if it could have been the Ferrises? Mounted? Yes,
mounted. Then it was Ferris and his wife--or it might have been Captain
Murrell and Miss Malroy the captain was a strapping, black-haired chap
who rode a big bay horse. Miss Malroy did not live in that part of
the country; she was a friend of Mrs. Ferris', belonged in Kentucky or
Tennessee, or somewhere out yonder--at any rate she was bringing her
visit to an end, for Ferris had instructed him to reserve a place for
her in the north-bound stage on the morrow.

Carrington suddenly remembered that he had some thought of starting
north in the morning himself, but he was still undecided. How about it
if he deferred his decision until the stage was leaving? Mr. Cleggett
consulted his bookings and was of the opinion that his chances would
not be good; and Carrington hastily paid down his money. Later in the
privacy of his own room he remarked meditatively, viewing his reflection
in the mirror that hung above the chimneypiece, "I reckon you're plain