to his horse. Over the ridge, along the crest, between dusky
thorn-hedges, he swept at full gallop, and so, slowly sinking towards
the fair valley which began to twinkle with the lights of scattered
farms to the eastward, he soon reached the last steep descent, and saw
the gray gleam of his own barn below him.

By this time his face was sternly set. He clinched his hands, and
muttered to himself--

"It will almost kill me to ask, but I must know, and--and she must
tell."

It was dark now. As he climbed again from the bottom of the hill towards
the house, a figure on the summit was drawn indistinctly against the
sky, unconscious that it was thus betrayed. But it vanished instantly,
and then he groaned--

"God help me! I cannot ask."




CHAPTER III.

MARY POTTER AND HER SON.


While Gilbert was dismounting at the gate leading into his barn-yard, he
was suddenly accosted by a boyish voice:--