At length the curtains of her bed began to reveal their pattern, the brass handles of the drawers gleamed forth, and day dawned. While the light was yet no more than a suffusion of pallor, she arose, put on her hat, and determined to explore the surrounding premises before the men arrived. Emerging into the raw loneliness of the daybreak, she went upon the bridge and looked up and down the road. It was as she had left it, empty, and the solitude was rendered yet more insistent by the silence of the mill-wheel, which was now stopped, the miller having given up expecting Bob and retired to bed about three o’clock. The footprints of the marines still remained in the dust on the bridge, all the heel-marks towards the house, showing that the party had not as yet returned.
While she lingered she heard a slight noise in the other direction, and, turning, saw a woman approaching. The woman came up quickly, and, to her amazement, Anne recognized Matilda. Her walk was convulsive, face pale, almost haggard, and the cold light of the morning invested it with all the ghostliness of death. She had plainly walked all the way from Budmouth, for her shoes were covered with dust.
‘Has the press-gang been here?’ she gasped. ‘If not they are coming!’
‘They have been.’
‘And got him—I am too late!’
‘No; they are coming back again. Why did you—’
‘I came to try to save him. Can we save him? Where is he?’
Anne looked the woman in the face, and it was impossible to doubt that she was in earnest.
‘I don’t know,’ she answered. ‘I am trying to find him before they come.’
‘Will you not let me help you?’ cried the repentant Matilda.