"
"I promise," I said, "that, if it be necessary for your truth, I will
marry you at once. I only hope she may not already have taken steps!"
"Her two days are not yet expired. I shall present myself in good
time.--But I wonder you are not afraid to trust yourself alone with the
son of such a mother!"
"To be what I know you, John," I answered, "and the son of that woman,
shows a good angel was not far off at your birth. But why talk of angels?
Whoever was your mother, God is your father!"
He made no reply beyond a loving pressure of my hand. Then he asked me
whether I could lend him something to ride home upon. I told him there
was an old horse the bailiff rode sometimes; I was very sorry he could
not have Zoe: she had been out all day and was too tired! He said Zoe was
much too precious for a hulking fellow like him to ride, but he would be
glad of the old horse.
I went to the stable with him, and saw him mount. What a determined look
there was on his face! He seemed quite a middle-aged man.
I have now to tell how he fared on the moor as he rode.
It had turned gusty and rather cold, and was still a dark night. The moon
would be up by and by however, and giving light enough, he thought,
before he came to the spot where his way parted company with that to
Dumbleton. The moon, however, did not see fit to rise so soon as John
expected her: he was not at that time quite _up_ in moons, any more than
in the paths across that moor.
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