and dismounted, Peter Blood surrendering his nag to one of the negro
grooms, who informed them that the Colonel was from home at the
moment.

Even then they lingered a moment, she detaining him.

"I am sorry, Mr. Blood, that I did not know before," she said, and
there was a suspicion of moisture in those clear hazel eyes. With
a compelling friendliness she held out her hand to him.

"Why, what difference could it have made?" he asked.

"Some, I think. You have been very hardly used by Fate."

"Och, now...." He paused. His keen sapphire eyes considered her
steadily a moment from under his level black brows. "It might have
been worse," he said, with a significance which brought a tinge of
colour to her cheeks and a flutter to her eyelids.

He stooped to kiss her hand before releasing it, and she did not
deny him. Then he turned and strode off towards the stockade a
half-mile away, and a vision of her face went with him, tinted with
a rising blush and a sudden unusual shyness. He forgot in that
little moment that he was a rebel-convict with ten years of slavery
before him; he forgot that he had planned an escape, which was to
be carried into effect that night; forgot even the peril of discovery
which as a result of the Governor's gout now overhung him.