Then the pursuit.
The steady rise and fall of the hoof-beats back in the forest; the
reining in of Robert's panting horse covered with foam; his command
to halt; a flash, and then that sweet face stretched out in the road
in the moonlight by the side of the overturned coach, the cousin bending
over her with a bullet hole in his hat, and Robert, ghastly white and
sobered, with the smoking pistol in his hand.
Then the long, halting procession homeward in the gray dawn.
It was not so easy after this to keep the secret shut away; so one
day, when the shock had passed,--her arms about her uncle's neck,--the
whole story came out. She told of that other night there in Richmond,
with Robert reeling and half crazed; of his promise of reform, and the
postponement of the wedding, while she waited and trusted: so sad a
story that the old uncle forgot all the traditions that bound Southern
families, and sustained her in her determination never to see Robert
again.
For days the broken-hearted lover haunted the place, while an out-bound
ship waited in Norfolk harbor.
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