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 would have spoken again. "We have had enough o' thy gab, young mistress! Be thankful we do not take ye, too, for giving aid to ye enemy—I saw ye, don't lorget that!"

"I am proud of it!" blazed the girl. But Squire Condit, whose passion had left him and who had stood in broken silence since, turned to her warningly.

"It but fans ye flame, Hitty, and does no good to speak!" he said gently. And Amos Williams nodded.

"Forward with ye prisoner!" he ordered briskly.

Mistress Condit, who had been sitting in stupefied terror all this time uttered a low moan as the men surrounded her husband. She laid Charity upon the settle and stumbled to her feet to run to him.

"Oh, Samuel!" she panted. "What be they going to do with you?"

He bent his head to kiss her reassuringly.

"I know not, Mary," but the quiet self-possession of his tone restored her fainting courage. "There is but One Who knows! Yet will He care for us, my love!"

Then, though his hands were tied behind him, he walked out into the storm with such a firm tread, such a look of quiet pride upon his face that his wife threw back her head to watch him, though her love and anxiety made the tears rain down her cheeks.

Mehitable, meanwhile, was bending over her little sister.

"Not dead!" She sank sobbing to her knees all at once.

Mistress Condit, who had been straining her ears for