Alfred was mad indeed.  He forgot everything.  In that moment the world held nothing for him save that fair face.  Her eyes, uplifted to his in the moonlight, beamed with a soft radiance.  They were honest eyes, just now filled with innocent sadness and regret, but they drew him with irresistible power.  Without realizing in the least what he was doing he yielded to the impulse.  Bending his head he kissed the tremulous lips.

“Oh,” whispered Betty, standing still as a statue and looking at him with wonderful eyes.  Then, as reason returned, a hot flush dyed her face, and wrenching her hands free she struck him across the cheek.

“For God’s sake, Betty, I did not mean to do that!  Wait.  I have something to tell you.  For pity’s sake, let me explain,” he cried, as the full enormity of his offence dawned upon him.

Betty was deaf to the imploring voice, for she ran into the house and slammed the door.

He called to her, but received no answer.  He knocked on the door, but it remained closed.  He stood still awhile, trying to collect his thoughts, and to find a way to undo the mischief he had wrought.  When the real significance of his act came to him he groaned in spirit.  What a fool he had been!  Only a few short hours and he must start on a perilous journey, leaving the girl he loved in ignorance of his real intentions.  Who was to tell her that he loved her?  Who was to tell her that it was because his whole heart and soul had gone to her that he had kissed her?

With bowed head he slowly walked away toward the fort, totally oblivious of the fact that a young girl, with hands pressed tightly over her breast to try to still a madly beating heart, watched him from her window until he disappeared into the shadow of the block-house.

Alfred paced up and down his room the four remaining hours of that eventful day.  When the light was breaking in at the east and dawn near at hand he heard the rough voices of men and the tramping of iron-shod hoofs.  The hour of his departure was at hand.

He sat down at his table and by the aid of the dim light from a pine knot he wrote a hurried letter to Betty.  A little hope revived in his heart as he thought that perhaps all might yet be well.  Surely some one would be up to whom he could intrust the letter, and if no one he would run over and slip it under the door of Colonel Zane’s house.

In the gray of the early morning Alfred rode out with the daring band of heavily armed men, all grim and stern, each silent with the thought of the man who knows he may never return.  Soon the settlement was left far behind.

CHAPTER V.

During the last few days, in which the frost had cracked open the hickory nuts, and in which the squirrels had been busily collecting and storing away their supply of nuts for winter use, it had been Isaac’s wont to shoulder his rifle, walk up the hill, and spend the morning in the grove.