She looked wildly at him, and all at once her look became vacant. She made no response. His eyes narrowed as he noted that glance, and he addressed the two women no more. But as he was on the point of leaving the room, he was arrested by the elder lady's voice.
"Don't—don't leave us," she whispered, with an appeal that might have made him smile at another time. Quite without warning, she clasped the girl to her. "Good God!" she cried despairingly, "they will be here presently to carry Joyce to—to jail!" She sat panting, as if she had been running.
"Oh, no, they will not," he rejoined quietly, his inflexion satisfyingly convincing. "Officers will be here by and by I have no doubt; but Miss Joyce shall remain beneath this roof to-night. Don't worry, Mrs. Westbrook; matters are not so bad as they appear just now."
"How can you prevent it?" she demanded anxiously.
"Leave that to me. Stay here with your daughter until I return. If I encounter Melissa, I will send her to you."
In the hall he reflected an instant, then made his way directly to Joyce's bedroom. As he unceremoniously threw the door open, he was met by a startled cry from the young lady's maid.
"Go to your mistress—in the morning-room," he commanded; and the woman, meeting his glance, obeyed without a word.
Before the southernmost of the two windows facing the west stood the small table of which McCaleb had spoken, upon it an unlighted lamp and a wax taper in a brass candle-stick. A tablet of letter paper lay beside these.
After first closing and making fast the door, he picked up the tablet and tossed back the cover, and there, in young Fairchild's hand, was the code of signals. After studying it at some length, he presently replaced the tablet on the table, and, leaving the window, switched off the lights.
But the blackness did not remain long unbroken. He was moving with an agility which was none the less swift by reason of its being noiseless, and as soon as the incandescent lights were extinguished, he struck a match, lighted the candle, and waited, looking intently through the window into the night.