Sullenly Tarleton followed her lead; he intercepted the glance she shot at Barry, and felt himself a butt for her ridicule, and his temper was not improved thereby. The ransacked pantries and closets gave up nothing that was alive except a mouse, at whose wild antics, Joscelyn and Barry laughed like a couple of children, their mouths full of cake which the girl had cut from the loaf on the shelf. It was such a relief to laugh, to do anything to ease the tense strain upon her nerves and composure. It was raining without, and she sat with Barry by the dining room fire, while Tarleton and the orderly investigated the cellar and the outbuildings. Those few moments alone with her finished the subjugation of the young man's heart. He knew that for him there could be no happiness in the future unless she shared it with him; and he was telling her so in hesitating whispers--for his very earnestness had made him shy and awkward--when the return of the searching party put an end to the interview. Joscelyn stood upon the veranda as Tarleton mounted for the ride, and cried out with her tantalizing mockery:-- "Commend me to his lordship, and say that you came upon a fool's errand, and carry back but the fruit of such a quest." She would have said more, but her mother plucked her by the sleeve with frightened command; and so with an enchanting change of manner she turned to Captain Barry, who had lingered on the step, and begged that he would ere long give them again the pleasure of his company. Her words were meant more as a rebuff to Tarleton by contrast with the sharp things she had said to him; but the younger officer construed them into an acknowledged preference for himself, and his quick pulses throbbed with a foretaste of that sweetest victory a man can win--the capture of a beloved woman's heart. As he rode away with his companion, he knew not if it still rained or was clear; the mud of the streets might have been drifts of bright-hued blossoms for all the notice he gave it; even his resentment against Tarleton was forgotten in this sweet dream of love which, amid the shadows of war, had suddenly opened before him as a flower unfolds its petals to the dawn. At supper with his fellow-officers, he heard none of the jests upon Tarleton's failure of the evening, so busy was he recalling every word and look of the girl who in one short week had made the world as a new creation for him. The time for his wooing would be short, and the morrow was too remote for his impatient heart; and so ere another hour went by he was again knocking at her door. Much to his chagrin, he found other guests before him, for hardly had he quitted the house ere Mary Singleton arrived and announced that she meant to tarry all night.