Interest in the departing cavalry drew the elders to the windows, and in this preoccupation Janice saw her opportunity to gain by stealth what had been denied her. Slipping silently from the parlour, she sped through hall and dining-room, pausing only when the kitchen doorway was attained, her courage wellnigh gone at the thought that the aide might refuse to believe her protestations of innocence. Certainty that she had but a moment in which to explain prevented hesitancy, and she entered the kitchen. The two troopers were already stretched at full length on the floor, their feet to the fire, while the sergeant sat by the table, with a pitcher of small beer and a pipe to solace his particular hours of guard mount over the prisoner. The latter was seated near the fire, his arms drawn behind him by a rope which passed through the slats of the chair back. So far as these fetters would permit, Brereton was slouched forward, with his chin resting on his chest in a most break-neck attitude, sound asleep. There could be no doubt about it, beyond credence though it was to the girl! While she had been miserably conceiving the officer as ablaze with wrath at her, he, with the philosophy of the experienced soldier, had lost not a moment in getting what rest he could after his forty-eight hours of hard riding. Such callousness was to Janice a source of indignation, and as she debated whether she should wake the slumberer and make her explanation, or punish his apathy by letting him sleep, Mrs. Meredith's voice calling her name in a not-to-be-misunderstood tone turned the balance, and, flying up the servants' stairway, Janice was able to answer her mother's third call from her own room. Worn out by excitement, worry, and physical fatigue, the girl, like the soldier, soon found oblivion from both past and future. It was well toward morning when a finish was made to the night's doings, and the early habits of the household were for once neglected to such an extent that the dragoons at last lost patience and roused Peg and Sukey with loudly shouted demands for breakfast,--a racket which served to set all astir once more. With the conclusion of the morning meal, Janice rose from the table and went toward the kitchen,--an action which at once caused Mrs. Meredith to demand: "Whither art thou going, child?" Facing about, the girl replied with some show of firmness: "'T is but fair that Colonel Brereton should know I had no hand in his captivation; and I have a right to tell him so." "Thou shalt do nothing of the sort," denied Mrs. Meredith. "Was not thy conduct last evening indelicate enough, but thou must seek to repeat it?" Janice, with her hand on the knob, began to sob. "'T is dreadful," she moaned, "after his doing what he did for us at York, and later, that he should think I had a hand in his capture."