As
they galloped on, only the distant barking of a watch-dog guarding some
lonely farm-house, or the premature crowing of a barn fowl, deceived by the
brilliancy of the moonlight into thinking that day had come, broke the
absolute silence. They might have been the one woman and the one man in a
new world, so profound was their isolation.
"Do you see that group of trees on the hill there just ahead of us," he
asked, carelessly, as the horses slowed to a canter. "Well, just the other
side of those trees the lane we passed joins the 'pike again. Now it is
possible that instead of your amiable relatives going home, they may have
taken to the lane. If it hasn't been closed, they may be waiting there to
welcome us." For a moment the girl was deceived by the lightness of his
manner; and then, as she realized what such a situation meant, she grew
white to the lips. "The chances are," he continued, cheerfully, "that they
won't be there, but we had just as well be prepared. If they are there we
must approach them just as if we were going to talk to them, slowing up
almost to a walk. They will be on my side, and I will keep in the middle of
the 'pike.
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