Page:Milady at Arms (1937).pdf/106

 Sally, however, was not looking at him. Her eyes, wide, staring, were fixed upon Lady Holden's face as that gentlewoman stared back at her. All at once the lady reeled and would have fallen but for her husband's outflung hand.

"The heat!" he murmured hastily; and stooping, he caught up his wife's slight figure in his arms and left the room.

General Howe, quite upset, brought the proceedings to an abrupt close. "The maid is discharged for lack o' evidence," he said sternly. "Set her free!" And he left the room, followed by his guests.

Free! Sally, upon the somber threshold of the New Gaol, stood undecided for a moment, staring across the Fields. Far down the street she could see the procession of sedan chairs in which General Howe and his party were being conveyed home. She wondered vaguely in which one sat Lady Holden, felt again that thrill of inexplicable and overwhelming intimacy which had swept over her when her eyes had met the lady's, and she started down the street instinctively in the direction taken by the sedan chairs. She had no plan for returning to Newark, as yet. Her thoughts were still in a tumult, and she hurried along Broadway blindly.

But as Sally proceeded down the wide lane that was filled with an afternoon throng, her steps slowed to a saunter. The sedan chairs, carried by