In the upper hall all was silence and semi-darkness. She went first to her own room, pausing just long enough to press her hands hard upon her temples before passing from it to her mother’s, calling the cat the while very softly. A fire of logs burned in her mother’s fireplace, so that she wondered at the cold breath of air that smote her as she entered; then she started,—a back window was open and the pot of plants which had stood upon the ledge lay shattered on the floor. A swift annoyance flashed upon her at the maid’s neglect, so that she went forward and closed the sash with a spirited promptness. Picking up a bit of the broken shard, and facing about from the window in search of the cat, she suddenly became aware of a man’s figure in the shadowy corner opposite. Instinctively she opened her mouth for a nervous cry, but with an imperative gesture for silence, he stepped forward, and even in the dim light she knew it was Richard Clevering. The scream died upon her lips, and for a moment the objects in the room spun before her.
“You—you?” and even in whispering her voice was strained and shaken.
“Yes; it was this or death—they had run me to the wall.”
“But the house is full of British soldiers—Lord Cornwallis and his whole staff—”
“So much the better; the place will be above suspicion.”
“Mistress Joscelyn, Mistress Joscelyn!” cried a dozen voices from below, while chairs were being pushed about, and some one struck a few notes on the spinet.
“And I myself, sir, am a true Loyalist and cannot harbour—”
There was a footstep on the stair. “Mistress Joscelyn, we be coming up to help you catch the cat!” cried Barry’s voice.
Richard sprang toward her, “My God, Joscelyn! you will not give me up like that?”
But the steps were halfway up the stair, and she was already turning the knob of the door, her face like marble in the leaping firelight.