“What!” cried Colonel Forrester, in a voice of thunder; and for the first time the innkeeper spoke, his ruddy face now mottled with white, and his hands trembling as he placed them together beseechingly.
“Don’t take any notice of what she says, sir. She’s a foolish, wilful girl, sir. I’ve been a miserable coward to hold my tongue so long, but I will speak now. It was all my doing. I held back so as not to seem in the business, because I wanted to be friends with both sides, sir; but I could not bear to see the young squire carried off a prisoner, and I winked at it all. It was my doing, sir. Don’t believe a word she says.”
“Father, what have you said?” cried his child, clinging to him.
“Hush! Hold your tongue,” he whispered angrily.
“So we have the truth at last,” said the colonel. “You convict yourself of being a spy and traitor; and you know your fate, I suppose?”
As Colonel Forrester spoke, he rose and walked to the window, made a sign with his hand, and directly after heavy steps were heard upon the stairs, accompanied by the clank of arms.
In an instant the girl was at the colonel’s feet.
“Oh, sir, what are you going to do?” she shrieked. “He is my father.”
The guilty innkeeper’s lips were quivering, and the white portions in his face were gradually increasing, to the exclusion of the red, for the steps of the soldiers on the stairs brought vividly before his eyes the scene of a spy’s fate. He knew what such a traitor’s end would be, and, speechless with terror, he could hardly keep his feet, as he looked from his child to the stern colonel and back again.
“Father!” she cried, “why don’t you speak? Why don’t you ask him to forgive us?”