"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.
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