Julia was the
first to speak.
"We might have known it," she said, "Mary Bartley is a young lady
incapable of misconduct; she is prudence, virtue, delicacy, and purity in
person; the man she was with at that place was sure to be her husband,
and who should that be but Walter, whom she loved?"
Then the servants looked anxiously at their master to see how he took
this startling revelation. Well, the Colonel stood firm as if he was at
the head of a column in the field. He was not the man to retreat from any
position, he said, "All we have to do is to save her; then my house and
arms are open to my son's wife."
"God bless you, father!" cried Walter, in a broken voice; "and God
bless you, dear cousin. Yes, it's no time for words." And he was gone
in a moment.
"Now Milton," said the Colonel, "he won't sleep here till the work is
done, and he won't sleep at all if we don't get a bed for him near the
mine. You order the break out, and go to the Dun Cow and do what you
can for him."
"That I will, sir; I'll take his own sheets and bedding with me.
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