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144 her professed solicitude on his account was genuine.

And yet he hesitated to admit the possibility of her playing him false. After all, he could make allowance for her feelings towards these people, among whom she had spent her childhood, and from whom she had received kindness from her earliest years. Was there not something noble, rather than perverse, in her honest espousal of their cause, even in her defiance of law and order in the persons of himself and the soldiers?

Tregenna, if the truth must be told, thought quite as much about Joan as he did about the important affairs in which he was engaged. He decided to pay his visit to Rede Hall on the night of the following day. It was from no foolhardiness that he resolved to venture alone on this expedition; it was from the certainty he felt that a sharp lookout would be kept, and that any attempt to bring a force against the place would be met by the same ignominious result as the visit of the morning.

The following evening proved an admirable one for his purpose. It was dark; it was wet; it was gloomy. After leaving orders that a