"Most certainly not!" returned the prosecuting attorney; but a smile flitted across his face--a smile which, in the darkness, Griswold did not see. "The two governors are very different men--wholly antipodal characters, in fact," and again Habersham smiled to himself.
While they thus stood on South Carolina soil, waiting for the safe and complete dispersion of the Mount Nebo congregation before seizing the captive they had gagged and tied at the rear of the little church, the fates were ordering a very different termination of the night's business.
Miss Jerry Dangerfield, galloping away from the Duke of Ballywinkle, with no thought but to widen the distance between them, turned off at the first cross-road, which began well enough, but degenerated rapidly into a miserable trail, through which she was obliged to walk her horse. Before she was aware of it she was in the midst of a clearing where laborers had lately been cutting timber, and she found, on turning to make her way out, that she was quite lost, for three trails, all seemingly alike, struck off into the forest. She spoke aloud to the horse to reassure herself, and smiled as she viewed the grim phalanx of stumps. She must, however, find her way back to Ardsley, for there were times when Jerry Dangerfield could be very serious with herself, though it rarely pleased her to be serious with other people; and she knew that the time had long passed for her return to the house. If her conspiracy with Thomas Ardmore had proved successful, the duke would not return to the great house; but her own prolonged absence was something that had not been in her program.
She did not know then that three men had witnessed her flight from the duke, or that they had taken swift vengeance upon him for his unpardonable conduct in the moon-blanched road. It was not Jerry's way to accept misfortune tamely, and after circling the wall of timber that shut her in, in the hope of determining where she had entered, she chose a trail at random and plunged into the woods. She assumed that probably all the roads and paths on the estate led more or less directly to the great house or to some lodge or bungalow. She had lost her riding-crop in her mad flight, and she broke off a switch, tossing its leaves into the moonlight and laughing softly as they rained about her.