s, but would return next day, and would
Schmidt send it as directed. He felt sure that he would return. As he
stood at the door of Schmidt's room, Mrs. Swanwick said from the foot of
the stairs: "The dinner is ready."

"Then it must wait for me until to-morrow. I have to ride on a business
matter to Bristol."

"Thou hadst better bide for thy meal."

"No, I cannot." As Mrs. Swanwick passed into the dining-room, Margaret
came from the withdrawing-room, and stood in the doorway opposite to
him, a china bowl of the late autumnal flowers in her hands. Seeing him
cloaked and booted to ride, she said:

"Wilt thou not stay to dine? I heard thee tell mother thou wouldst not."

"No; I have a matter on hand which requires haste."

She had learned to read his face.

"It must be a pleasant errand," she said. "I wish thee success."
Thinking as he stood how some ancestor going to war would have asked for
a glove, a tress of hair, to carry on his helmet, he said: "Give me a
flower for luck."

"No; they are faded."

"Ah, I shall think your wish a rose--a rose that will not fade."

She colored a little and went by him, saying nothing, lest she might say
too much.

"Good-by!" he added, and went out the hall door, and made haste to reach
the stables of the Bull and Bear, where Schmidt kept the horses De
Courval was free to use. He was about to do a rash and, as men would see
it, a foolish thing. He laughed as he mounted. He knew that now he had
no more power to stop or hesitate than the stone which has left the
sling.

He had made the journey to New York more than once, and as he rode north
up the road to Bristol in a heavy downfall of rain he reflected that
Carteaux would cross the Delaware by the ferry at that town, or farther
on at Trenton.

If the doctor had been correct as to the time, Carteaux had started at
least an hour and a half before him.

It was still raining heavily as he rode out of the city, and as the gray
storm-clouds would shorten the daylight, he pushed on at speed, sure of
overtaking his enemy and intently on guard. He stayed a moment beside
the road to note the distance, as read on a mile-stone, and knew he had
come seven miles. That would answer. He smiled as he saw on the stone
the three balls of the Penn arms, popularly known as the three apple
dumplings. A moment later his horse picked up a pebble. It took him some
minutes to get it out, the animal being restless. Glancing at his watch,
he rode