"Yes, mother." Then with a crash she dropped the key basket, which she had snatched up, just in front of the attic door, and while gathering up the spilled keys with one hand, she slipped the note under the door with the other, and instantly felt it grasped and drawn away to the other side. She knew Richard could read it by means of his tinder-box. Then flinging the keys into the basket, she ran downstairs. As she entered the parlour, and saw before the hearth the short, square figure of Tarleton, the tremor passed out of her limbs. All day she had been starting and quaking; now in the presence of the real danger, she was calm and collected. She greeted the colonel with a fair show of hospitality, and fell immediately to talking of those ill-fated volumes of McAden. It was anything to gain time that the last lingering daylight might go. Tarleton let her run on for a few minutes, even let Barry repeat her poor little joke about the blue flames; then he cleared his throat and began:-- "Mistress Joscelyn, it behooves--" But she interrupted him. "Why, dear me, did not mother give you a cup of tea? You must have one at once to kill that cold in your throat. What a terrible ride you must have had to-day in this storm. A soldier's life is indeed a hard one, and nobly does he win the fame which illumines his name! Two lumps, or three? Ah, you have a sweet tooth." But she could not stave him off after he had drained his cup. She wanted to tell him how they came by the tea since the tax had stopped its sale, but he cut her short. "Another time, Mistress Joscelyn, I shall be glad to listen to your story, which is no doubt an interesting one. But just now I have graver matters to discuss with you." "Grave matters with me?" she repeated, with feigned surprise and a ripple of laughter that was like the tinkle of a silver bell. "That is an unusual kind of discussion for a soldier to hold with a woman. Are you going to ask my advice about your morning coffee or your next campaign? But I pray you, sir, proceed; I am all attention." There was not a glimmer of daylight through the unshuttered window-sash. She felt the sinews in her hands and arms grow like iron, and her pulses beat with the perfection of rhythm. So does a great crisis sometimes steady a woman's nerves. The short colonel rocked himself from toe to heel a moment as he looked at her half in unbelief, half in admiration of her coolness. Truly she was superb. Then he said:-- "The spy of yesterday has not been taken." "So these gentlemen were telling me," smiling over at Barry. "But it is most important to the safety of our command and the good of our cause that he be found--dead or alive." She merely nodded, never taking her steady gaze from his face.