Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/31

 lently from their corner. At last, the eyes of the two girls met suddenly, significantly.

"Is that not Hawtree?" whispered Charity noiselessly, her gaze full of horror, for the man, Hawtree, was a notorious Tory whom they had reason both to fear and to dislike.

At that instant, as though he felt their eyes upon him, Hawtree whirled around, and his cold, level glance rested upon them. There was no sign of recognition in it, however, and a second later he turned away with apparent indifference.

Charity's face was white, and she clutched at Mehitable spasmodically. "The other," she whispered, pointing wildly, "the other be Jaffray! Is it so?"

Mehitable stared, then her cheeks, too, paled. But she lifted her chin. "It be so, Cherry," she whispered steadily, "yet I defy them both!"

Charity, however, as she gazed at a villain into whose power the fortune of war had once thrown her, wrung her hands. "Three years, and here they return!" she panted. "Heaven forgi' me—I—had hoped they were both dead!"

Fortunately, amid the preparations for supper, her panic was unnoticed. The long table in the center of the room was covered by a snowy linen cloth—Mistress Ranfield, Tory or no Tory, was a notable housewife and cook—and spread with pewter dishes and flagons of ale and cider. A