For some time she stood still, watching, with a comfortable sense of safety, the queer figure and the twinkle of his lantern as it bobbed up and down along the street.
"Elinor, is that thou?"
"Ay, Margaret."
"Now art thou unruly, indeed,—walking the house at midnight like an uneasy ghost, when I bade thee go to bed and to sleep. To bed, I say, this instant!"
Elinor smiled, but obeyed, and drawing the coverlid over her fell into a light slumber, broken by a fitful dream in which the world seemed to be whirling around, and Ralph Ingle was pushing it to make it go faster, when suddenly Christopher Neville appeared, and all at once it stopped and she could hear his voice bidding her be of good cheer and fear nothing. Then came the unconsciousness of deeper sleep; and at last, out of that calm there swept a great noise, a rush of feet along the quiet street, a swinging of lanterns, a hurried knocking at the door, and a shout,—
"Make ready all within! Dick Ingle is at the gates!"