But now Beatrix sprang up and threw her arms around my neck and clung to me, protesting that I should not go—that I must not go; and I do think our good cousin was more deeply scandalized than I ever saw her. The little hubbub gave me a chance to whisper in my loved one’s ear: “You must let me go, Beatrix; it may be nothing. And if they have come for me, I could not escape. Be brave, dear, for my sake—and for the honor of the Leighs!”
She loosed me, and though Mistress Pettus was looking on, I took the sweet face between my hands and kissed the trembling lips. Then I went out quickly to live or die, as it might befall, caring little, just at that moment, for the worst that any one could do to me.
It was a false alarm, as I was able to assure the two women after I had spoken to the sergeant in charge of the detail. Properly counted, Cousin Julianna’s “lot of redcoat soldiers” dwindled to a half-dozen men, sent out by Arnold to guard the house where his wife lay—this in view of the disturbing rumors which might reach her ears. It was to advise her of this that he had sent the letter by my hands, as Margaret Shippen, herself, came down to tell us.
I take no shame for saying that I made haste to leave when Mistress Arnold came upon the scene; and as it was, her sweet patient face, as reproachful to me as an accusing angel’s, went all the way with me in the storm-breasting return to the lower part of the town, with the wind howling overhead and a sleety rain driving in level stinging volleys.
Champe was alone in the lower hall when I gave the password to the sentry at the door and entered.
“It is a bad night?” he said, most grimly.
“It is,” I admitted, struggling out of my dripping watchcoat.
“There will be shipping lost, think you?” he queried meaningly.
“No small craft will venture out,” I returned, matching his hyperbole. “Anything sitting less deeply than a fifty-four would founder in the launching.”
“I thought so,” he said gloomily; and after that we sat in silence before the fire, listening to the wind yelling in the huge chimney.