“A troop of rangers!” said Elizabeth. “And Sam is with them!” She closed the shutter, and turned to Peyton, her face still glowing with the resentment elicited by the cavalier attitude he had assumed before this alarm. “Go or stay, ’tis nothing to you, you said! The last insult, Sir Rebel Captain!” and she made for the door.
“You mustn’t go! You mustn’t go!” was the only speech he could summon. But she was already passing him. He snatched a kerchief from her dress, 152 and dropped it on the floor. She did not observe his act. “Pardon me!” he cried. “Your kerchief! You’ve dropped it, don’t you see?”
She turned and saw it on the floor.
Peyton quickly stepped from behind his chair, stooped and picked up the kerchief, kissed it, and handed it to her, then staggered to his former support, showing in his face and by a groan the pain caused him by his movement.
“Your wound!” said Elizabeth, standing still. “You shouldn’t have stooped!”
Harry’s pain and consequent weakness, added to his consciousness of the rapidly approaching enemy, who had already turned in from the main road, gave him a pallor that would have claimed the attention of a less compassionate woman even than Elizabeth.
“No matter!” he murmured, feebly. Then, as if about to swoon, he threw his head back, lost his hold of the chair-back, and staggered to the spinet. Leaning on this, he gasped, “My cravat! I feel as if I were choking!” and made some futile effort with his hand to unfasten the neck-cloth. “Would you,” he panted, “may I beg—loosen it?”
She went to his side, undid the cravat, and otherwise relieved his neck of its confinement. She could not but meet his gaze as she did so. It was a gaze of eager, adoring eyes. He feebly smiled his thanks, 153 and spoke, between short breaths, the words, “The hour—I love you—yes, the troops!”
The horses were clattering up towards the house.
A voice of command was heard through the window.