CHAPTER X.
That ride of mine all night to London was such as I shall never forget, not from any outward incident that happened, but for the thoughts that went continually through my heart and brain; and I do not suppose that I spoke twenty words to James all night, until we saw about seven o'clock the smoke and spires of London against the morning sky.
* * * * * So soon as the coast was clear, and the last sound of the horses was died away on the hill beyond the Castle Inn--for the men rode fast and hard to catch me--I was out and away in the opposite direction, to Puckeridge; but first we brought the horses back as softly as we could, with James (who, like a good servant had not stirred an inch from his orders through all the tumult which he had heard plainly enough from the meadow), round to the head of the little lane that leads from Hormead Magna into Hare Street.

There we waited, I say, all four of us in silence, until we heard the hoofs no more; and then James and I mounted on our horses.
I had said scarcely a word to Dorothy, nor she to me; for we both felt, I think, that there was no great need of words after such an adventure, and that it had knit us closer together than any words could do; and, besides, that was no place to talk.

Yet it was not all pure joy; for here was the knowledge which we both had, that I must go away, and that God only knew when I should get back again; and, whatever that knowledge was to Dorothy, it was as a sword for pain to me.

As for my Cousin Tom, he was no better than a dummy; for he was still terrified at all that had happened, and at the magistrate's words to him.

I told them both, while we were still in the house, that I must go to London, partly for that that was the last place in the world that any would look for me in, and partly--( but this I told neither of them)--for that I must return the packet to His Majesty: and I said that from London I would go to France for a little, until it seemed safe for me to get back again.