les.
Here"--he snatched up the New Testament from the table, and shook it at
Rufus--"here are my principles, and I'm not ashamed of them!"

Rufus took up his hat.

"There's one thing you'll be ashamed of, my son, when you're cool enough
to think about it," he said; "you'll be ashamed of the words you have
spoken to a friend who loves you. I'm not a bit angry myself. You remind
me of that time on board the steamer, when the quarter-master was going
to shoot the bird. You made it up with him--and you'll come to my hotel
and make it up with me. And then we'll shake hands, and talk about
Sally. If it's not taking another liberty, I'll trouble you for a
light." He helped himself to a match from the box on the chimney-piece,
lit his cigar, and left the room.

He had not been gone half an hour, before the better nature of Amelius
urged him to follow Rufus and make his apologies. But he was too anxious
about Sally to leave the cottage, until he had seen her first. The tone
in which she had answered him, when he knocked at her door, suggested,
to his sensitive apprehension, that there was something more serious
the matter with her than a mere headache. For another hour, he waited
patiently, on the chance that he might hear her moving in her room.
Nothing happened. No sound reached his ears, except the occasional
rolling of carriage-wheels on the road outside.

His patience began to fail him, as the second hour moved on. He went to
the door, and listened, and still heard nothing. A sudden dread struck
him that she might have fainted. He opened the door a few inches, and
spoke to her. There was no answer. He looked in. The room was empty.

He ran into the hall, and called to Toff. Was she, by any chance,
downstairs? No. Or out in the garden? No. Master and man looked at each
other in silence. Sally was gone.

CHAPTER 9

Toff was the first who recovered himself.

"Courage, sir!" he said. "With a little thinking, we shall see the way
to find her. That rude American man, who talked with her this morning,
may be the person who has brought this misfortune on us."

Amelius waited to hear no more. There was the chance, at least, that
something might have been said which had induced her to take refuge with
Rufus. He ran back to the library to get his hat.

Toff followed his master, with another suggestion. "One word more, sir,
before you go. If the American man cannot help us, we must be ready to
try another way. Permit me