“Save yourself!” she cried, and pushed him through the open doorway, flinging the door shut upon him, a movement which the pursuing soldier, stayed for a moment by collision with Colden, was not in time to prevent. Harry heard the key move in the lock, and knew that Elizabeth had turned it, and that he was safe in the south hall, with a minute of vantage which he might employ as he would.

Elizabeth withdrew the key from the locked door, just as the pursuing soldier arrived at that door. The man, in his excitement, violently tried to open the door. Colden, who was wrapping a handkerchief around his wounded hand, shouted to the man:

“You fool, she has the key! Take it from her!”

276

“You shall kill me first!” she cried, and ran from the man towards the open window, stepping over the prostrate bodies of Sam and Williams as she went.

“After her! She’ll throw it into the snow!” cried Colden.

This much Harry heard through the door, and heard also the heavy tread of the soldier’s feet in pursuit of the girl. His mind imaged forth a momentary picture of the fellow’s rough hands laid on the delicate arms of Elizabeth, of her body clasped by the man in a struggle, her white skin reddened by his grasp. The spectacle, imaginary and lasting but an instant, maddened Peyton beyond endurance, made him a giant, a Hercules. He threw himself against the door repeatedly, plied foot and body in heavy blows. Meanwhile Elizabeth had reached the window, and thrown the key far out on the snow-heaped lawn. She had no sooner done so than the man laid his clutch on her arm.

“Fly, Peyton, for God’s sake! For my sake!” she shouted.

“You shall pay for aiding the enemy, if he does!” cried Colden. “Don’t let her escape, Thompson!”

At that instant the locked door gave way, and in burst Harry, having broken, to save Elizabeth from a rude contact, the barrier she had closed to save his life. That life, which he had once saved by callously assailing her heart, he now risked, that her body 277 might not suffer the touch of an ungentle hand. So swift and sudden was his entrance, that he had crossed the room, and floored Elizabeth’s captor, with a deep gash down the side of the head, ere Colden made a step towards him.