"
To this suggestion Mason acquiesced, and a courier was sent to the major
with the important intelligence of the escape of Henry, and an
intimation of the necessity of his presence to conduct the pursuit.
After this arrangement, the officers separated.
When Miss Peyton and her niece first learned the escape of Captain
Wharton, it was with difficulty they could credit their senses. They
both relied so implicitly on the success of Dunwoodie's exertions, that
they thought the act, on the part of their relative, extremely
imprudent; but it was now too late to mend it. While listening to the
conversation of the officers, both were struck with the increased danger
of Henry's situation, if recaptured, and they trembled to think of the
great exertions that would be made to accomplish this object. Miss
Peyton consoled herself, and endeavored to cheer her niece, with the
probability that the fugitives would pursue their course with
unremitting diligence, so that they might reach the neutral ground
before the horse would carry down the tidings of their flight. The
absence of Dunwoodie seemed to her all-important, and the artless lady
was anxiously devising some project that might detain her kinsman, and
thus give her nephew the longest possible time. But very different were
the reflections of Frances.
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