But this consolation, perhaps because it was now repeated for the fiftieth time, somehow failed to bring relief to Kate's troubled heart.
"He will never come back, I know," she said; "for I sent him away! Oh, how I wish I had not sent him away! Why—why did you let me?"
Maisie's mouth dropped to a pathetic pout of despair. It was so much easier comforting a man, she thought, than a girl. Now, if it had been William—
But at that moment a loud and continuous knocking was heard at the outer door, which had been so carefully barred against the storm.
"It is my dear!" cried Maisie, jumping eagerly to her feet, "and I had not heard his footstep turn into the street."
And she looked reproachfully at Kate, as though in this instance she had been entirely to blame.
"It is the first time that I ever missed hearing that," she said, and ran quickly down the stairs. As she threw open the fastenings a noisy gust of wind rioted in, and slammed all the doors with claps like thunder.
"William!" she cried, "dear lad, forgive me; I could not hear your foot for the noise of the wind, though I was listening. Believe me that—"
But it was the face of an unknown man which confronted her. He was clad in a blue military mantle, under which a uniform was indistinctly seen.
"Your pardon, madam," he said, looking down upon her, "are you not Mistress Gordon, the wife of Captain William Gordon, of the regiment of the Covenant?"