said--go back with him as his slave. There was no help for it.

And so the lovers held a hurried consultation, pledged eternal
fidelity and all that, agreed that Posey should go on and make his
fortune, and that when Dora should be released by death from her duty
to her father he should either come back for her or she should go to
him, and then they would be married. Meantime, he engaged to write to
her frequently, and she promised to write to him faithfully once every
week. And then farewell!

By this time the doctor's party had left him far behind, and
naturally, considering the capabilities of his steed, he was growing
impatient to move on. The early stars were already coming out, and
he testily reminded Dora, as she lingered over her leavetaking, that
there was no more time to lose. And so, without a murmur, the devoted
soul turned her back upon all her new-born hope and joy, and dutifully
took up the long and dreadful homeward march on foot. And Posey,
his heart in his mouth and his tongue charged with unutterable
execrations, gazed gloomily down into the darkening valley, that half
an hour before had been filled with a radiance "that never shone on
land or sea." And as he gazed all the bad in him persistently rose
up to curse the despicable author of his woe, while all the good in
him--about an even balance--rose up to bless the fast-disappearing
idol of his heart.

Slowly and painfully, day after day, the little company of stragglers
toiled on toward their distant homes, the redoubtable doctor, with his
unwilling beast and his willing bond-woman, ever bringing up the rear.
No one but Dora herself could know how grievously she suffered in
her chains--how her very heart's blood was gradually consumed by