“It is for you to decide, Katherine.  The boat is here.  Even I must obey or disobey orders.  Will you not go with me, your husband, to love and life and honour; or shall I stay with you, for disgrace and death?  For from you I will not part again.”

She had no time to consider how much truth there was in this desperate statement.  The boat was waiting.  Richard was wooing her consent with kisses and entreaties.  Her own soul urged her, not only by the joy of his presence, but by the memory of the anguish she had endured that day in the terror of his desertion.  From the first moment she had hesitated; therefore, from the first moment she had yielded.  She clung to her husband’s arm, she lifted her face to his, she said softly, but clearly, “I will go with you, Richard.  With you I will go.  Where to, I care not at all.”

They stepped into the boat, and Hyde said, “Oars.”  Not a word was spoken.  He held her within his left arm, close to his side, and partially covered with his military cloak.  It was the boat belonging to the commander of “The Dauntless,” and the six sailors manning it sent the light craft flying like an arrow down the bay.  All the past was behind her.  She had done what was irrevocable.  For joy or for sorrow, her place was evermore at her husband’s side.  Richard understood the decision she was coming to; knew that every doubt and fear had vanished when her hand stole into his hand, when she slightly lifted her face, and whispered, “Richard.”

They were practically alone upon the misty river; and Richard answered the tender call with sweet, impassioned kisses; with low, lover-like, encouraging words; with a silence that thrilled with such soft beat and subsidence of the spirit’s wing, as—­

“When it feels, in cloud-girt wayfaring,
The breath of kindred plumes against its feet.”

[Illustration:  Tail-piece]

[Illustration:  Chapter heading]

X.

“Good people, how they wrangle! 
The manners that they never mend,
The characters they mangle! 
They eat and drink, and scheme and plod,
And go to church on Sunday;
And many are afraid of God,
And some of Mrs. Grundy.”

During that same hour Joris was in the town council.  There had been a stormy and prolonged session on the Quartering Act.  “To little purpose have we compelled the revocation of the Stamp Act,” he cried, “if the Quartering Act upon us is to be forced.  We want not English soldiers here.  In our homes why should we quarter them?”

All the way home he was asking himself the question; and, when he found Dominie Van Linden talking to Lysbet, he gladly discussed it over again with him.  Lysbet sat beside them, knitting and listening.  Until after nine o’clock Joris did not notice the absence of his daughter.  “She went to Joanna’s,” said Lysbet calmly.  No fear had yet entered her heart.  Perhaps she had a vague suspicion that Katherine might also go to Mrs. Gordon’s, and she was inclined to avoid any notice of the lateness of the hour.  If it were even ten o’clock when she returned, Lysbet intended to make no remarks.  But ten o’clock came, and the dominie went, and Joris suddenly became anxious about Katherine.