"Your pass!" said he, confronting Rachel.
"Her mistress is with her," answered Ida, emboldened by the exigency.
He bowed respectfully, and pursued his beat. Ida's heart throbbed loudly, but she stifled her fears by a reconsideration of Lynn's extremity of danger,—"it was no time for nervous failings." Rachel did not possess such a tonic, and had seen every shadow, heard every rustle of the breeze.
Before their adventure with the dreaded "guard," she had known that one of the gentlemen above-mentioned had taken the same route with themselves; keeping, however, upon the other side of the street; and after Ida's ready response removed her apprehension of "the cage" and Mayor's court, she saw him still upon her track—worse! crossing towards them. Overcome with terror, she clutched her mistress' arm, and by a frantic gesture, directed her to the object of alarm. He was within six feet of them; and startled by his proximity, and the fright of her attendant, she stood still. A minute of breathless suspense, and the stranger was at her side.
"Miss Ross," he said, in a low but confident tone. "This is a strange hour for a lady to be in the street with such attendance!"
His stern, cold address could not repress her thrilling pleasure.
"Oh, Mr. Lacy!" she exclaimed, clinging to his arm, and giving way, for the first time, to tears. "Life and death depend upon my action—the life of one very dear to us both—you would not reproach me if you knew—"
"Ida! dear Ida!" said he, mindful only of her sorrow. "Can there be reason for this excessive grief? Your fears have misled you. Of whom do you speak?"
She could not speak quite yet, but her sobs were subsiding under his soothing.
"Will you not trust yourself and our friend to me, Ida?"