to his own animal, and rode round to the servants'
door, where he delivered the letter for Mrs. Dornell. To leave a verbal
message for Betty was now impossible.

The Court servants desired him to stay over the night, but he would not
do so, desiring to get back to the Squire as soon as possible and tell
what he had seen. Whether he ought not to have intercepted the young
people, and carried off Betty himself to her father, he did not know.
However, it was too late to think of that now, and without wetting his
lips or swallowing a crumb, Tupcombe turned his back upon King's-Hintock
Court.

It was not till he had advanced a considerable distance on his way
homeward that, halting under the lantern of a roadside-inn while the
horse was watered, there came a traveller from the opposite direction in
a hired coach; the lantern lit the stranger's face as he passed along and
dropped into the shade. Tupcombe exulted for the moment, though he could
hardly have justified his exultation. The belated traveller was Reynard;
and another had stepped in before him.

You may now be willing to know of the fortunes of Miss Betty. Left much
to herself through the intervening days, she had ample time to brood over
her desperate attempt at the stratagem of infection--thwarted,
apparently, by her mother's promptitude. In what other way to gain time
she could not think. Thus drew on the day and the hour of the evening on
which her husband was expected to announce himself.

At some period after dark, when she could not tell, a tap at the window,
twice and thrice repeated, became audible. It caused her to start up,
for the only visitant in her mind was the one whose advances she had so
feared as to risk health and life to repel them. She crept to the
window, and heard a whisper without.

'It is I--Charley,' said the voice.

Betty's face fired with excitement. She had latterly begun to doubt her
admirer's staunchness, fancying his love to be going off in mere
attentions which neither committed him nor herself very deeply. She
opened the window, saying in a joyous whisper, 'Oh Charley; I thought you
had deserted me quite!'

He assured her he had not done that, and that he had a horse in waiting,
if she would ride off with him. 'You must come quickly,' he said; 'for
Reynard's on the way!'

To throw a cloak round herself was the work of a moment, and assuring
herself that her door was locked against a surprise, she climbed over th