of some
tumultuous though covert agitation. Her blood blazed at fever-heat in
her cheeks; her eyes were on fire; every muscle was tense; and her brain
whirled. To her the crisis was tremendous. This was the result of her
unwarranted interference. Who was she, indeed, that she should seek
to command the march of events and deploy sequences? Her foolish
maneuvering had lured this innocent man to ruin, capture, anguish,
and death. No warning could he have; the window was opaque with the
corrugations of the rainfall on the streaming panes, and set too high
to afford him a glimpse from without. And, oh, how he would despise
the traitor that she must needs seem to be! She had not a moment for
reflection, for counsel, for action. Already the signal,--he was prompt
at the tryst,--the sharp, crystalline vibration of the tap on the glass!

The sheriff rose instantly with that cumbrous agility sometimes
characterizing portly men. "There he is now!" he exclaimed.

But Meddy, with a little hysterical cry, had sprung first to the opening
door. "Barton Smith!" she exclaimed, with shrill significance. "Hyar is
yer guide, Sher'ff, wet ez a drownded rat."

The pale face in the dark aperture of the doorway, as the fire-light
flashed on it, grew ghastly white with terror and lean with amazement.
For a moment the man seemed petrified. Seymour, vaguely fumbling with
his suspicions, began to disintegrate the plot of the play, and to
discriminate the powers of the dramatis personae.

"Now, my man, step lively," said the officer in his big, husky voice.
"Do you know this Royston McGurny?"

To be sure, Seymour had no cause for suspicion but his own intuition and
the intangible evidence of tone and look all as obvious to the others as
to him. But he was at once doubtful and relieved when the haggard wretch
at the door, mustering his courage, replied: "Know Royston McGurny! None
better. Knowed him all my life."

"Got pretty good horse?"

"Got none at all; expect ter borry Mr. Kettison's."

"I'll go show ye whar the saddle be," exclaimed Meddy, with her wonted
officious-ness, and glibly picking up the bits of her shattered scheme.
Seymour fully expected they would not return from the gloom without,
whither they had disappeared, but embrace the immediate chance of escape
before the inopportune arrival of the real Barton Smith should balk the
possibility. But, no,--and he doubted anew all his suspicions,--in
a trice here they both were again