The Admiral's Daughter

by Margaret Stuart Lane

Her mistress moved about restlessly for a while, then sat down, and taking up the needlework with which Simone had been busied, stitched for a short time. The French girl quietly found other occupation, and made no remark when Marion flung down the sheet and went into the next room. There she turned over her riding habit. Again she passed through her fingers the long line of silk which Simone had bound on to the cord in such a way that no roughness of joining was left which might catch on any surface. With the same dexterity Simone had attached the cord to the rope. Lifelessly Marion laid down the lengths. To and fro she paced the little room. A fever was slowly mounting to her brain. She dared not trust herself to seek the eastward window. To wait: to do nothing but wait, within a few hours of doom—could she endure it?

She went back into her own chamber, and silently held out a hand to Simone. Together the two passed out into the garden. To and fro under the trees they paced, and from time to time they fell within the line of the shutter niche of Mistress Keziah's window. Looking down on the girl's face, Mistress Keziah suddenly felt herself to be an old, old woman. Wiping away a few tears, she strove to consider afresh the problem of the necessities for Marion's plan. Failing the main road, were there no by-paths?

A little later she opened the casement, and called down to Marion.

'I have just thought, my dear,' she said, when the girl entered her room, 'that I should like to drive out to see Mrs. Burroughs. Her house is but three miles out of the town. There are children there,' she added diffidently. 'Would you care to accompany me?' The rest she left unsaid, but Marion understood. She rang her aunt's bell, and Mistress Keziah ordered the coach.

Half an hour later the horses were climbing the steep lane out of Exeter.

At the house they descended, and were welcomed by a pleasant-faced woman, the daughter of a girl friend of Mistress Keziah's. Very soon the visitor mentioned the children, and a boy and girl of ten and twelve years were summoned to the room.

Marion devoted herself to the newcomers with such friendliness that presently she was borne off to see the stables and the ponies, the trout brook at the bottom of the field, then back to the house to the play-room to look at their treasures. By dint of adroit questioning she learnt the favourite pastime of the two. The boy, talking eagerly to his guest, told her proudly of his skill in archery. At thirty yards he had hit the target. His sister, standing by Marion's side, obviously lost in admiration of such a visitor as rarely came her way, noted Marion's changing colour.

'I used to shoot once upon a time,' she said. 'Let me see your bow. I should like to try again.'

Then the little girl, amazed, saw the 'beautiful lady' suddenly stiffen. She could not think what had happened: merely that her brother had explained that his bow was broken, and another was promised by his father for his birthday.

Later on, with a child at either hand, Marion descended to the sitting-room. Mistress Keziah's glance read the story in her face. Soon she rose to bid her hostess adieu, Marion's cold lips framing what answers she could to the lady's genial parting words.