entrance hall, and at the
door one of the statue-like soldiers took two steps aside and barred the
way. I faced about and we plunged once again into the throng, but not
before I had had a glimpse of Richard in the hall beyond. When the
chance offered, I bent to whisper.

"Dick is in the hall, looking for me, go you to him and warn him. I may
not pass the door, as you have seen."

"He will not escape without you," she demurred.

"Tell him he must. Tell him I say he must!"

She glanced over her shoulder with a look in her eyes that made me think
of a wounded bird fluttering in the net of the fowler.

"Oh, 'tis hard, hard!" she murmured.

I snatched the word from her lips. "To choose between love and wifely
duty? Then I make it a command. Go, quickly!"

She went at that, and I made my way slowly to the far side of the
ball-room, taking post in a deep-recessed window giving upon the lawn.
Though it was January and the night was chill and raw, the rooms were
summer warm with the breath of the crush, and some one had swung the
casement.

Without, I could hear the horses of the waiting troop champing
restlessly at their bits, and now and again the low gentling words of
the riders. Why the colonel did not spring his trap at once I could not
guess; though I learned later that he had magnified our two-man spying
venture into a patriot foray meant to capture the whole houseful of
British officers at a swoop, and was taking his measures accordingly.

'Twas while I was listening to the champing horses that I heard my name
whispered in the darkness beyond the open casement; I turned slowly, and
the nearest of the soldier watchers began to edge his way toward my
window.

"'Tis I--Dick Jennifer," whispered the voice without. "Swing the
casement a little wider and out with you. Be swift about it, for God's
sake!"

"I am fair trapped," I whispered back. "Make off as you can."

"And leave you behind?" So much I heard; and then came sounds of a
struggle; the breath-catchings of two men locked in a strangler's hold,
a smothered oath or two, a fall on the turf under the window, followed
by the soft thudding of fist blows. I could bear it no longer. The
edging soldier had come within arm's reach, and when I swung the
casement a little wider, he laid a hand on my shoulder.

"In the name of the king!" he said; and this was all he had time or
leave to say. For at the summons I drove my fist against the point of
his wagging jaw,