"Yes; we caught a fellow in the house when we arrived. He had no time for escape—rough-looking miscreant, claiming to be a Continental. We have him under guard in the library."
"He confessed to the whole story?"
"Not a word; claimed to know nothing except that Claire was here. Said he saw you, and then went away, not getting back again until this morning."
"The fellow is a liar, Colonel. Let me see him; I'll lash the truth out of his lips. Where did you say he was—in the library?"
I had barely time to rise to my feet when he entered. His eyes swept across the guard, and then centred upon me. Instantly they blazed with excitement, although I noticed he took a sudden step backward in the first shock of surprise, his hand dropping to the butt of a pistol in his belt.
"By all the gods!" he exclaimed sharply. "If it isn't the spy! I miss the red jacket, but I know the face, Mister Lieutenant Fortesque."
"Major Lawrence, if you please," I returned quietly.
"We'll not quarrel over the name. I've had occasion to know you under both; bearing one you was a spy, beneath the other a leader of banditti. I'll hang you with equal pleasure under either." Suddenly he seemed to remember where we were, and his face flushed with newly aroused rage. "But first you'll explain what you are doing here at Elmhurst. Do you know whose home this is?"
"Most assuredly," determined not to lose my temper, or to be moved by his threats. "It is the property of Colonel Mortimer, of the Queen's Rangers."
"And—and you—you came here to again see—the daughter?" he questioned, as though half regretting the indiscretion of such a suspicion.