"I know it," Saunders broke in. "Now, listen to me, Dolly; this thing shall go no further if I can help it. He wants to catch the southbound train. I am going to stop him."
"No, no!" Dolly sprang forward, desperately clutching his arm. "He will shoot you."
"I must do it!" Saunders caught both her hands in his and pressed them. "You must let me--I have never been able to help you in any way, and I have always wanted to. I'd give my life to--to be of service to you to-night. I feel this thing, little friend. I must do something--I simply must!"
"I don't know what to say or do." Dolly clung to his hands desperately. She raised them spasmodically and unconsciously pressed them against her throbbing breast. "Oh, Mr. Saunders, it is so--so awful to be suspected of being bad when I--when I--"
"When you are the purest, sweetest child that ever breathed," he cried, fiercely. "They sha'n't start gossip about you." He dropped her hands and turned his horse round quickly. "I'll overtake him and stop him." He glanced at his watch. "I have no time to lose. I must go. Be brave, Dolly. It will come out right--it must!" He swung himself into his saddle; she clung to his foot which he was trying to put into the stirrup.
"He will kill you, too," she sobbed, "and I'll have that on my head also. Oh, Mr. Saunders--"
Gently he drew his foot from her clutch. There was a look in his eyes which she never forgot to the end of her life. "Excuse me, but I must hurry," he said. "He is on a fast horse, and the train may be on time. He must not get aboard. He mustn't, Dolly--good-by."
Away he dashed at full speed, bent to the mane of his mount like a chased Indian on the plains. Once he looked back, seeing the patient little figure standing like a mile-stone at the roadside. On he sped, tasting the dust pounded into the air by Drake's horse, and feeling the grit between his teeth. No one was in sight. The lights of the farmhouses on the road moved backward like ships in a fog. Suddenly, some distance ahead, he saw a rider dismounting. It was Drake, who now stooped down to pick up something he had dropped. As he did so he saw the pursuing horse, and, quickly springing into his saddle, was off again.