Meeker. But truly, I must go."
"You are very brave," I said, admiring her spirit, though I was loath
to have the responsibility of her safety on my hands.
"Without you I should not dare to go, I fear," she made answer, "I need
a strong arm to lean on, you see."
"You may wish later that you had chosen a cavalier with two strong arms
to his equipment. I fear I shouldn't do so well in a hand-to-hand
encounter as I should have done before I met Mr. Terrill last night."
"Oh, I hope it will not come to that," said Mrs. Knapp cheerfully,
though there was a little tremor in her voice.
"What if they have seized the boy?"
Mrs. Knapp was silent for a little, as if this contingency had not
entered her plans.
"We must follow him and save him, even if we have to raise the whole
county to do it." Her voice was firm and resolute.
"What would happen to the boy if he were taken?" I found courage to
ask.
"He would not live a month," she replied.
"Would he be murdered?"
"I don't know how the end would come. But I know he would die."
I was in the shadow of the mystery. A hundred questions rose to my
lips; but behind them all frowned the grim wolf-visage of Doddridge
Knapp, and I could not find the courage that could make me speak to
them.
"Mrs. Knapp," I said, "you have called me by my name. I had almost
forgotten that I had ever borne it. I have lived more in the last month
than in the twenty-five years that I remember before it, and I have
almost come to think that the old name belongs to some one else.
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