But no sooner did he catch sight of the small figure in the open doorway than the anger left his face, and he stood before her with uncovered head, paying no more heed to the others than if they had been part of the furniture in the hall. "Sweet Mistress Dorothy," he said,--and his eyes searched her face with a passionate inquiry--"we are ordered away, as you may have heard. I am leaving the town to-night, and could not go until I had seen you once more." The eyes looking up into his were filled with many emotions, but Dorothy made no reply. He waited a moment for her to speak. Then an eager, appealing look came to his face, and he asked, "Have you naught to say to me--no word for me before I go?" Joseph Devereux now found his voice. "Aught to say to ye, sirrah!" he demanded furiously. "What should a daughter o' mine have to say to one of His Majesty's officers, who has been to this house but once before, and then, as now, only by means of his own audacity?" At the sound of this angry voice Dorothy shuddered, and tearing her eyes from those blue ones that had not once left her face, she turned quickly and clung to her father. The young man laughed, but not pleasantly, and there was a nervous twitching of the fingers resting upon the hilt of his sword. "You are surely aware, sir," he said, "that I have the honor of a slight acquaintance with your daughter. And I fail to see why I should be insulted, simply because I was mistaken in holding it to be but natural courtesy that I should bid her farewell." Here his voice broke in a way that was strange to all save Dorothy and Mary, as he added: "We leave this place to-morrow, sir, and your daughter and myself are never like to meet again; and I had good reason to wish the privilege of begging her forgiveness for aught I may have done to cause her annoyance. And if she refused me forgiveness, then she might be pleased to wish me a right speedy meeting with a bullet from one of her own people's guns." Joseph Devereux looked sorely puzzled at these strange words, which seemed to bear some hidden meaning. Then, as he felt the quivering of the slight form clinging to him so closely, and heard the tremulous "Oh, father, speak him kindly," his face relaxed and he spoke less brusquely than at first. "Your conduct seems rather cavalier, young sir, but we surely have no wish to seem insulting; and as for any annoyance you may have caused my daughter, I am ignorant o' such. It is but natural, considering the times, that we do not relish receiving into our houses gentry who wear such color as is your coat; and yet we are not cut-throats, either in deed or thought. We pray and hope for the good of our country and cause; and for such, and such only, do we think o' the use o' bullets."