This was the truth; for she had not once glanced behind the door, and she spoke the words slowly, looking the while straight into Tarleton's eyes. He turned his searching gaze from her, but evidently he was not satisfied, for as she moved from the door he snatched the light, and stepping beyond her, and so on up the hall, looked into both of the rooms he had recently examined. As he paused at her door with the candle lifted above his head, the scene swam before Joscelyn's eyes. If he entered, there would be discovery--murder. It seemed an interminable minute that he stood thus; then the blood came again to her heart with a rush, for he turned back from the threshold, and, calling for another light to leave in the hall, he went again to finish his examination of the attic. Not a box was left unemptied, not a barrel or chest or shelf that was not searched as for some tiny object that might secrete itself in a crack. Joscelyn, leaning against the open door, watched the process in silence save for occasional mocking suggestions or biting comments, to most of which he gave no heed. A lurking suspicion of her, added to his fear of ridicule at headquarters, made him doubly cautious, so that he never turned his back upon her for an instant, and now and then he paused and looked at her keenly and curiously; but she only gave him a satirical laugh for his pains. But the search could not go on forever, and at last he had to announce that he had finished. Joscelyn longed to leave the door open, that Richard might creep back; but they had found it locked, and so, fearful of arousing suspicion, she made no objection when Tarleton, having looked behind the door, locked it and handed her the key. On every step of the stair her spirits rose, so that her cheeks were brilliant and her eyes shining, when at the bottom Barry met them, and relieving her of her basket and candle, placed them on the table. There was no need to ask the result of the search; Tarleton's face was a proclamation of defeat. After a few pleasantries with Barry as to how he had guarded the steps, and how many ghostly spies he had seen gliding up or down, Joscelyn opened the dining room door, saying, with a return to her stately courtesy:-- "And now, Colonel Tarleton, we will finish our task, an it please you. His lordship will be consumed with impatience for your return."