During all this time the dragoon's eyes never strayed from the curly head pressed against the old man's arm. And now, while her father was speaking, Dorothy's face was turned, and the big dark eyes, full of perplexity and fear, met his own and held them. Mary had made a sign to her husband, and he followed her into the drawing-room, where Aunt Lettice was still sitting before the fire, the trembling fingers betraying her excitement as they flashed the slender needles back and forth through the stocking she was knitting. "What does it all mean, dear?" she inquired, as Mary came and looked down into the fire, while she twisted her hands together in a nervous fashion most unusual with her. "It means," John Devereux answered angrily, but not loud enough to reach the ears of those in the hall, "that there is never any telling to what length the presuming impudence of these redcoats will go." He ground his teeth savagely as he wondered why he had not taken the intruder by the collar and ejected him before the others came upon the scene; and he was now angry at himself for not having done this. "Whatever can he wish to say good-by to Dot for?" he muttered hastily to his wife. "And whatever can he mean about annoying her? Annoy her, indeed! Had he done such a thing, I should have heard of it ere this, and he would not have gone unpunished all these days, to crawl in now with a pretence of apology." "It seems to me there was little show of crawling in the way he came," said Mary, with the ghost of a smile, and speaking only because her husband seemed to be expecting her to say something. Her brain was in a tumult as she wondered what would be the end of all this, and what would--what could poor Dorothy do for her own peace of mind and that of her father? She feared that, should a sudden knowledge of the truth come to him, it might be his death-blow; and she made no doubt that if her hot-headed husband knew it, the young dragoon would scarcely be permitted to leave the house unscathed, if indeed he were not killed outright. And then she thought of a duel,--of its chances, and of her husband not being the one to survive. At this a low cry escaped from her lips before she could prevent it; and her husband stepped closer to her side. "It is nothing--nothing," she said brokenly, in response to his anxious questioning. "I was but thinking." "Thinking of what, sweetheart?" "If any harm should befall you," she answered. "Why, what harm, think you, should come to me?" And he took her hands, holding them close, while he tried to look into her averted eyes. "I--don't know," she said evasively. "These are such dreadful times that have come to us, that no one can tell what is like to happen. Oh," with a sudden impetuous burst, more suited to Dorothy than to her own calm self, "I wish there had never been such a nation as the English!"