CHAPTER XII.
The girl stole quietly into the toll-house after her lover had ridden away toward the misty hills. She found her mother still sleeping soundly in her chair, quite oblivious of surroundings, and little dreaming that the secret the Squire had urged her to keep so securely had reached a third pair of ears already in its swift journeyings.
Catching up her sewing again, which she had quickly dropped on the floor in her eagerness to see the belated rider, Sally began to sew away industriously to make up for lost time, while her thoughts flew a good deal faster than her needle.
Her surcharged mind was now happily relieved of a portion of its burden of fears. There was no longer any danger threatening her sweetheart, so far as the present intended raid was concerned, and possibly this itself would fail of fruition.
Soon after ten o'clock the sheriff and a posse of armed men appeared.
"You keep late hours, Miss Sally," he said when she and her mother came out to receive them. "I expected to find you both asleep."
"Not when we are expecting company," the girl answered with a laugh that was somewhat forced; "that wouldn't be good manners, you know."
"It's no use to go to bed," insisted Mrs. Brown. "I couldn't sleep a wink, not if my life depended on it, that I couldn't." Sally smiled faintly, thinking of the recent long nap her mother had taken, and of the warning that had been given, quite unknown to the sleeper, thanks to this period of oblivion.