As for setting the midnight marriage aside, I made sure the lawyer tribe could find a way, if that were all.  But here there was a loyal daughter of the Church to reckon with.  Loathing her bonds, as any true-hearted maiden must, would Margery consent to have them broken by the law?  I knew well she would not.  Though our poor knotting of the tie had been little better than a tragic farce, it lacked nothing of force to bind the tender conscience of a woman bred to look upon the churchly rite as final.

So, twist and turn it as I might, the coil was desperate; and as I strode on gloomily, measuring this the first stage in a pilgrimage I had never thought to make, a fire of sullen anger began to smoke and smolder within me, and I could find it in my heart to curse the cruel kindness of my rescuers; to sorrow in my inmost soul that they had come between to make a living recreant of one who would fain have died an honest man.

XIV

HOW THE BARONET PLAYED ROUGE-ET-NOIR

The sun was well above the tree-tops, and the morning was abroad for all the furred and feathered wood-folk, when I forsook the Indian path to make a prudent circle of reconnaissance around the cabin in the maple grove.

Happily, there was no need for the cautionary measure.  The hunting lodge was undiscovered as yet by any enemy; and when I showed myself my poor black vassals ran to do my bidding, weeping with childish joy to have me back again.

Since old Darius was still at Appleby Hundred, Tomas ranked as majordomo; and I bade him post the blacks in a loosely drawn sentry line about the cabin, this against the chance that Falconnet might stumble on the place in searching for me.  For I made no doubt his Tory spies would quickly pass the word that I was not with Abram Forney’s band, and hence must be in hiding.

When all was done I flung myself upon the couch of panther-skins, hoping against hope that sleep might come to help me through the hours of waiting.  ’Twas a vain hope.  There was never a wink of forgetfulness for me in all the long watches of the summer day, and I must lie wide-eyed and haggard, thinking night would never come, and making sure that fate had never before walled a man in such a dungeon of despair.

There was no loophole of escape with honor; The heavens were brass, with all the horizons narrowed to a bounding wall to hem me in on every side.  There was no sally-port in all this wall save one—­the one that death had promised to open at the dawn.  The promise had been broken.  True, death had thrust the key within the lock, and I had heard the grating of the bolts; and yet the key had been withdrawn and I was left a prisoner of life.

There was no hope of other outlet.  Now there was space to view it calmly, I saw how foolish was the thought that Margery would connive at any breaking of the marriage bond.  She would bear my name, and hate me for the giving of it; would go on hating me, I thought, to all eternity; but she would never take her freedom back again, save at a dead man’s hands.