When he came closer to her he saw that she had been weeping and that her face was white with fear. “Where’s father?” he asked. “Hush! He’s not here. He went out after you went to bed. He’s been away all night. Oh, Robbie, look here!” She took his hand and led him to the window of her room and pointed out into the road. Distinctly, in the moonlight, he saw a man in uniform, carrying a gun, pacing back and forth along the road in front of the house. Then she took him to the hall-window, and showed him another soldier leaning carelessly against the garden fence, with his eyes fixed on the rear of the house. “There are four of them,” she said. “They came a few minutes ago. I saw them come down the road. They have surrounded the house.” “But, father,” repeated Bob; “where’s father?” “Hush, Robbie, hush! They won’t find him. They think he’s here in the house, but he isn’t. He left it long before they came.” “But, where is he, mother? I insist on knowing.” “Don’t talk so loud, Robbie. You’ll waken Louise. They’ll hear you.” “Did he go to the woods, mother? to the barn? to the shop? where?” “Hush! my boy, hush! Don’t whisper it. He went to the shop. He’s in--Robbie, listen, he’s in the windmill tower. He has his gun with him, and his revolver. He’s going to--to--” She reeled and fell, fainting and exhausted, into the boy’s arms, and he led and dragged her back into her own room, and laid her tenderly on her bed. He chafed her hands and bathed her face, and by and by she returned to consciousness, and told him in more detail of the manner in which his father had left the house, and of the coming of the soldiers. But she never loosened her clasp of his hand until the gray light in the eastern sky announced the approach of dawn. Then there came a knocking at the hall-door of the house. Bob released his hand from his mother’s, and slipped quietly into his own room and began to put on the rest of his clothes. But, long before he had finished, the knocking was repeated. It came louder, more persistently. He made haste to be ready, but, before he could leave his room, the knocking was again renewed, with strokes that resounded through the house. Somehow it reminded him of the knocking at the gate in _Macbeth_, and of the awful tragedy which the opening of that gate was to disclose. What tragedy would follow the knocking at the door of the house of Bannister? CHAPTER V AN UNEXPECTED BREAKFAST As Bob descended the stairs to open the hall-door in response to the knocking, his mother stood on the upper landing, trembling with excitement and fear. When the door was finally opened, she could see, dimly outlined in the doorway, a man dressed in the uniform of a sergeant in the army of the United States. “We have come,” he said to Bob, “by order of the provost-marshal, to arrest Rhett Bannister, who has been drafted and has failed to respond.” The man was courteous in manner, but firm of speech. “He is not here,” replied Bob.