Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/66

 There was a little silence, then Mehitable spoke very low: "Who—was—the other—man?" she asked, her young face rather pale and strained, for all the whipping of the wind upon her cheeks.

"Don't ye remember?" Charity turned and looked at her sister suddenly. "Don't ye remember how Nancy's and John's misunderstanding was straightened out at last? It seems" Again Charity hesitated.

"It seems?" Mehitable repeated it in a whisper, her eyes upon the other's face.

"It seems that Captain Anthony Freeman was the man who borrowed John's mask suit that night," Charity told her quietly. And silence fell.

Now the road led through deep forest. Ghostly shadows turned out to be stark, winter-stripped trees over and over, yet the primeval solitude, the dusk, and the war all made even Squire Condit's gaze very alert as he glanced from side to side, urging his horses into a trot that caused the old sled to creak and to clatter in aged protest.

It was when they had reached the utmost depths of the forest that Mehitable, glancing back over the snowy road, uttered a startled exclamation.

"Father—back there—do ye see?"

The Squire glanced over his shoulder. Dim figures, barely discernible through the twilight, were galloping after the sled.

"Zounds!" he muttered more to himself than to