"My name is Major Charteris. I must speak to Miss Ashleigh at once. It is a matter of great importance, almost of life and death, or I would not disturb her at this hour. Please give her my message."
I had struck a light by this time, and began dressing hurriedly. What could he want? what could be the matter? I opened the door and called out to Hannah to put on her things at once, and that I would be ready in five minutes. I do not think I was ever so puzzled in my life as I was while I was dressing at that time. I could not form the slightest conjecture what it could be about—not the slightest. If I had not heard him speak, and listened to his regular tramp as he walked up and down outside, I should have thought that he must have been drinking, and that all this must be some tipsy frolic. But the earnest, steady tones of his voice precluded the possibility of this supposition; and I really could form no other. I do not think I was more than five minutes dressing, and putting my hair in a net, and just as I was ready I heard Hannah coming downstairs. I went out of my room, and down into the parlour. I lit the two candles on the mantelpiece, and then stood anxiously waiting while Hannah unbolted the front door; in another minute the major entered.
"Miss Ashleigh," he began at once, "I had the pleasure of knowing you some years ago, and I trust that you are assured that I would not needlessly disturb you at this time of the night; but I am sure you will excuse my so doing when you know the cause. You were once great friends, I believe, with Mr. Harmer's grand-daughter,—do you know where she is now?"
"I must first know why you ask, Major Charteris."
"I ask, because at the present moment there is a woman in my quarters in barracks; how she got there I will tell you presently—she is in charge of my wife. She says she is Mr. Harmer's grand-daughter; but whether truly or not, I cannot say. If she is, she is so much altered that I should not have known her."
"Yes, yes," I said, "no doubt it is Sophy. I know she is in this part of the country; but what is the matter with her? and how came she in the barracks?"
"She came in for refuge, Miss Ashleigh; she was dressed as a Roman Catholic priest."
"As a priest!" I exclaimed, astonished.
"Yes, indeed, Miss Ashleigh; and what is most curious, she was followed by a real priest, to escape from whom she took refuge in the barracks; I should not have disturbed you, but she has had a fainting fit, and is now delirious; and I am afraid, by what our doctor says, in a state of great danger. It struck me that you, being connected with Mr. Harmer, might know if it were really his grand-daughter, and, if so, might wish to come to her; so I thought it my duty to come and inform you at once, in spite of the strangeness of the hour."
"I am very much obliged to you, Major Charteris," I said, "very much. Poor Sophy, what must she have gone through! So this is the end of her search."