, and together they
walked down the pike until the house was shut from view. He turned then,
and was about to speak but waited, listening. It was one of those very
still nights of heavy atmosphere when sounds carry great distances, and
he had detected the leisurely galloping of two horses. Soon he heard
them slow down at the stream where he and Tusk had fought; then a wave
of laughter, mingled with the splash of water and iron shod hoofs
striking upon loose stones, reached him. After this the galloping
recommenced.

Had he wanted he might have stepped farther into the shadows and escaped
detection; but he waited until they were nearly abreast, then called.
Dale pulled up with a jerk, and Jane leaned over her pummel peering into
the darkness where they stood. He spoke now, and she answered:

"Hello, Brent! Oh, is it you, Nancy?"

Try as she did, with all of her might, to make this greeting natural,
the alert perception of the engineer heard only her surprise--her hurt
surprise--that Nancy was there. Had she come unexpectedly upon Nancy in
a foreign hospital bed, she might have said it--to Brent's ears--in
identically the same way.

"We didn't want you to pass without saying howdy," Brent explained.
"Where away in such a hurry?"

"I supped this night with my lord John May," she had rallied now, "and
Sir Dale is seeing me on the road. Whence lies your way?"

"The way of the penitent," he declared.

"'Tis not so hard as the transgressor's," she warned, galloping on.

"Why did you stop her?" Nancy asked, looking at him in wonder. "She
needn't have seen you heah?"

"I wanted her to see--how pretty you are," he answered; but during that
pause, slight as it was, she realized he had stubbornly, defiantly,
baffled his pride.

"Didn't you say something about bein' honest?" she naively asked.

His face grew sober. "I wanted her to see us; I want her to know I think
it's a compliment if you talk to me by the roadside. That's all. No, it
isn't all," he went on. "I want you to decide something, and now it'll
be easier for you to decide, because they did see us. I'm in earnest; I
don't want any prudish weights on this conversation. If they think
there's something wrong, so much the better. But the very first thing I
want to say to you is, that I've been a pup. I want to be a man with
you--as much of a man as you were a noble girl by coming over to Arden
the other night!" She was staring at him in utter amazement. "You saw