“Is Miss Howard tired of seeing me under the tiles of St. Ruth?” asked Katherine. “But hark! are there not footsteps approaching along the gallery?”
They listened, in breathless silence, and soon heard distinctly the approaching tread of more than one person. Voices were quite audible, and before they had time to consult on what was best to be done, the words of the speakers were distinctly heard at the door of their own apartment.
“Ay! he has a military air about him, Peters, that will make him a prize; come, open the door.”
“This is not his room, your honor,” said the alarmed soldier; “he quarters in the last room in the gallery.”
“How know you that, fellow? come, produce the key, and open the way for me; I care not who sleeps here; there is no saying but I may enlist them all three.”
A single moment of dreadful incertitude succeeded, when the sentinel was heard saying, in reply to this peremptory order:
“I thought your honor wanted to see the one with the black stock, and so left the rest of the keys at the other end of the passage; but——”
“But nothing, you loon; a sentinel should always carry his keys about him, like a jailer; follow, then, and let me see the lad who dresses so well to the right.”
As the heart of Katherine began to beat less vehemently, she said:
“'Tis Borroughcliffe, and too drunk to see that we have left the key in the door; but what is to be done? we have but a moment for consultation.”