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“Oh, you needn’t. You’ll have a crow to pluck with him when I tell you why he sent me that order to hurry on from the river. It was simply and solely to test you—to see if you would keep your promise. If you had protested and raised a storm, Tarleton had orders to pack you both down-stream again immediately.”

“Really! To lay traps for one in that way!” Indignation choked Lady Haigh’s utterance, and she rode on in wrathful silence while her husband pointed out to Penelope the line of the projected roads and canals, now only indicated by rows of stakes, the young trees just planted in sheltered spots, and carefully fenced in against goats and firewood-seekers, and the rising walls or mere foundations of various large buildings. Crossing an open space, dotted with the dark tents and squabbling children of a wandering tribe of gipsy origin, they rode in at the gateway of the fort, where the great doors hung idly against the wall, unguarded even by a sentry. Sir Dugald helped the ladies to dismount, and led them into the first of a range of lofty, thick-walled rooms, freshly white-washed.