From Kingdom to Colony Part 29

His smiling face became sober at once, and a curious intentness crept into his blue eyes while he and Dorothy looked at each other without speaking. Then he asked deliberately, "Of what were you dreaming just now, Dot?"

A burning blush deepened the color in her cheeks, and her eyes fell before those that seemed to be searching her very thoughts.

"Shall I make a guess?" he said, a strange thrill now creeping into his voice and causing her to lift her eyes again. "Were you dreaming of that young redcoat you were walking with this morning?"

She sprang to her feet and faced him, her eyes blazing, and her slight form trembling with anger.

"I was not walking with any such," she replied hotly. "How dare you say so?"

"Because it so appeared as I came along the Salem road," was his calm answer. "I saw him on one side of the road leaning against the stone wall, and watching you, as you went from the wall on the opposite side, and across your father's lot. His eyes were fixed upon you as though he were never going to look away; indeed he never saw nor heard me until my horse was directly in front of him."

Dorothy was now looking down at the floor, and made no reply.

After waiting a moment for her to speak, Hugh took both her hands and held them close, while he said with an earnestness that seemed almost solemn in its intensity: "Don't deceive me, Dot. Don't tell me aught that is not true, when you can trust me to defend you and your happiness with my life, if needs be."

His words comforted her in a way she could not explain. And yet they startled her; for she was still too much of a child, and Hugh Knollys had been too long a part of her every-day life, for her to suspect how it really was with him.

"I was not intending to tell you any untruth, Hugh. But--I was not walking with him."

The anger had now gone from her eyes, and she left her hands to lie quietly in his clasp. But she had not forgotten the warm pressure of those other hands in whose keeping they had been that same morning.

"Had you not seen him, Dot?" Hugh asked, looking keenly into her face.

At this her whole nature was up in rebellion, for she could not brook his pursuing the matter farther, after what she had already told him.

"Let go my hands!" she exclaimed angrily. "Let me go! You have no right to question me as to my doings."

He dropped her hands at once, and rising to his feet, turned his back to her, and looked out of the window. A mighty flood of jealousy was surging through his brain; and that which he had so long repressed was struggling hard to uproot itself from the secret depths,--where he was striving to hide it from her knowledge--and burst forth in fierce words from his lips.

Had this hated Britisher dared to steal into the sacred place of the child's heart, which he himself, from a sense of honor, was bound to make no effort to penetrate? The mere suspicion of such a thing was maddening.

Dorothy glanced at him. How big and angry he looked, standing there with tightly folded arms, his lips compressed, and his brows contracted into a deep scowl! How unlike he was to the sunny-faced Hugh Knollys who had been her companion since childhood!

"Don't be angry with me, Hugh," she pleaded softly, venturing timidly to touch his shoulder.

He whirled about so suddenly as to startle her, and she fell back a pace, her wondering eyes staring at the set white face before her.

"I am not angry, Dot," he said, letting his arms drop from their clasping; "I am only--hurt." And he slowly resumed his place upon the window-seat.

"I don't wish to hurt you, Hugh," Dorothy declared, as she sat down by him again.

He seemed to make an effort to smile, as he asked, "Don't you?"

"No, I do not." And now her voice began to gather a little asperity.

"But you do not seem to consider that you said aught to hurt me, as well."

He took her hand and stroked it gently.

"You know well, Dot," he said, "that I'd not hurt you by word or deed.

And it is only when I think you are doing what is like to hurt yourself, that I make bold to speak as I did just now."

Dorothy was silent, but her brain was busy. The thought had come to her that she must bind him by some means,--make it certain that he should not speak of this matter to her brother. And a wild impulse--one she did not stop to question--urged her to see that the young soldier was not brought to any accounting for whatever he had done.

She wondered how much Hugh might know, and how much was only suspicion,--surmise. And with the intent to satisfy herself as to this, she said, "Just because you saw a redcoat watching me, as you thought, and at a distance, you forthwith accuse me of walking with him."

She spoke with a fine show of impatience and reproof, but still permitting him to hold and caress her hand.

"Aye, Dot, but there be redcoats and redcoats. And this one happened to be that yellow-faced gallant we are forever meeting, the one you--"

She interrupted him. "I know what you mean. But I tell you truly, Hugh, I had not been walking with him, nor did I know he was by the stone wall looking after me, as you say."

"And you had not seen him?" Hugh asked, now beginning to appear more like himself, and bending his smiling face down to look at her.

But the smile vanished, as he met her faltering eyes.

"Don't tell me, Dot, if you'd sooner not; only know that you can trust me, if you will, and I'll never fail you,--never!"

These words, and the way they were spoken, settled all her doubts, and clasping her other hand over his, that still held her own, she burst forth impetuously: "Oh, I will tell you, Hugh. Only you'll promise me that you'll never tell of it, not even to Jack."

The young man hesitated, but only for a second, as the sweet prospect of a secret between them--one to be shared by no other, not even her idolized brother--swept away all other thoughts.

"I promise that I'll tell no one, Dot,--not even Jack."

He spoke slowly and guardedly, the better to hide the mad beating of his heart, and the effort he was making to restrain himself from taking her in his arms and telling her what she was to him.

Dorothy uttered a little sigh, as if greatly relieved. Then she said with an air of perfect frankness: "Well, Hugh, I _did_ see him--up in the wood, as I was coming from old Ruth's. He spoke to me, and I ran away from him."

"What did he say?" Hugh demanded quickly.

"Oh, I cannot remember,--he startled me so. I was dreadfully frightened, although I am sure he meant no harm."

"No harm," Hugh repeated wrathfully. "It was sufficient harm for him to dare speak to you at all."

"No, but it was not," the girl declared emphatically. "He and I are acquainted, you know--after a fashion. It was not the first time he has spoken to me, nor I to him, for that matter."

Hugh's blue eyes flashed with anger.

"I have a great mind to make it the last!" he exclaimed with hot indignation, and half starting from his seat.

But Dorothy pushed him back. "Now mark this, Hugh Knollys," she said warningly,--"if you say aught to him, and so make me the subject of unseemly brawling, I'll never speak to you again,--no, not the longest day we both live!" And she brought her small clenched fist down with enforcing emphasis upon Hugh's broad palm.

"What a little spitfire you are, Dot!" And he smiled at her once more.

"Spitfire, is it? You seem to have a plentiful supply of compliments for me this day." She spoke almost gayly, pleased as she was to have diverted him so easily.

He was now staring at her with a new expression in his eyes, and appeared to be turning over some matter in his mind; and Dorothy remained silent, wondering what it might be.

"Dorothy," he said presently, and very gravely, "I wonder will you promise me something?"