h-risen moon, between
wind-driven clouds, that enabled Miss Sally to make this observation.

"Looks well! The tatterdemalion!" And Elizabeth came from the door, as
if loathing further sight of him.

But Miss Sally continued to look after the riders, as their dark forms
were borne rapidly towards the post-road. "Nay, I think he is quite
handsome."

"Pah! You think every man is handsome!" said the niece, curtly.

Miss Sally turned from the door, quite shocked.

"Why, Elizabeth, you know I'm the least susceptible of women!"

Old Mr. Valentine nodded sadly, as much as to say, "I know that, all
too well!"

As the racing clouds now rushed over the moon, and the horsemen's
figures, having become more and more blurred, were lost in the
blackness, Miss Sally closed and bolted the door. The horses were
faintly heard coming to a halt, at about the junction of the branch
road with the highway, then moving on again rapidly, not further
towards the south, as might have been expected, but back northward,
and finally towards the east. Meanwhile Elizabeth stood in the hall,
her rage none the less that its object was no longer present to have
it wreaked on him. Such hate, such passionate craving for revenge, had
never theretofore been awakened in her. And when she realized the
unlikelihood of any opportunity for satisfaction, she was exasperated
to the limit of self-control.

"If you had only had some troops here!" she said to Colden.

"I know it! May the rascal perish for finding me at such a disadvantage!
'Twas my choice between denying my colors and becoming his prisoner."

This brought back to Elizabeth's mind the talk between Colden and
Peyton, which her feelings had for the time driven from her thoughts.
But now a natural curiosity asserted itself.

"So you knew the fellow before?"

"I met him in '75," said Colden, blurting awkwardly into the
explanation that he knew had to be made, though little was his stomach
for it. "He was passing through New York from Boston to his home in
Virginia, after he had deserted from the King's army--"

"Deserted?" Elizabeth opened wide her eyes.

Colden briefly outlined, as far as was desirable, what he knew of
Peyton's story.

It was Miss Sally who then said:

"And he disarmed you in a duel?"

"He had practised under London fencing-masters, as he but now
admitted," replied Colden, grumpily. "He made no secret of his
desertion; and in a coffee-house discussion I said it was a d