ALMAYNE rapped on the table, ordered more ale and drained the cup to the dregs. He sat silent, glaring at Lachlan, his eyes gleaming under their shaggy brows. The younger man laughed in his face.
"Almayne," he said, "I can read you like a book. This Mam'selle Jolie is beautiful and you would keep me from her because you are afraid that I shall lose my heart. Is it not so, old friend?"
Almayne nodded. "I am thinking of your father," he grumbled, "and what he expects of you."
Lachlan's lips tightened.
"I have told you, Almayne," he said gravely, "that I am going home to Tallasee—to my people. No English girl will make me forget that trust. Now will you tell me of this very lovely lady about whom you seem to know so much?"
"Yes, boy, since you will have it so," the hunter answered slowly, and plunged into his tale.
Mistress Jolie Stanwicke, "he said, had come from England to Charles Town in search of a young gentle man of Hampshire whom she was to marry—one, Gilbert Barradell, who had come to Carolina a year and a half before to seek his fortune in the peltry
