In the early morning, before the family were astir, Joscelyn dressed herself hurriedly and went to the attic door. It was ajar. With a quick premonition of evil, she entered and whispered Richard's name. No answer came; no one was there. Then the truth flashed upon her--he had gone, risking everything rather than further expose her to discovery and its dire results. How chivalric, and yet how insane! Of course he would be captured, or else he would perish with cold and hunger this bitter winter weather. She looked about carefully; not a scrap of a note had he left to say good-by. She had not dared to wait to speak with him last night, lest Mary discover them; but now she reproached herself, feeling that she might have prevented this mad mistake. She had meant to come back after all was quiet, but Mary talked so long that for very shame she had not dared to do so, dreading his man's judgment of a visit at such an hour. She was now in a nervous tremor, and feared to have the maids come in, lest they announce that the spy had been taken; and when they came but said naught of it, she began to look for news from outsiders. Several times during the morning meal she glanced across to Aunt Clevering's house with such a tempestuous pity for the old lady's coming sorrow that her eyes shone with tears; and her mother, seeing them, thought that it was sorrow for the estrangement she had wrought between the two families, and resolved to tell Ann Clevering about it. "Come, Joscelyn," said Mary, looking up from her plate, "an you eat no breakfast and keep your mouth pulled down at the corners like that, we'll be thinking Captain Barry left unsaid the things he should have said last night." "I know not what you think he should have said--but he was very charming," the girl said, rousing herself. "Particularly when you two sat on the stair and whispered so long." "The time seemed long to you because just at that time Edward Moore was talking with Pattie Newsom." "Well," answered Mary, tossing her head, "it was quite as long to him, for he said it seemed years while he was from me." "Poor Pattie!" But all the time she jested her heart was full; and she kept her eyes on the opposite house or watched those who passed in the street to guess, if possible, if they carried news to the commander's quarters. The rain had passed in the night, but toward dawn the wind had crystallized it into sleet, so that in the sun the ice-dight world sparkled like a jewel catching the light upon its many facets and kindling each with a different flame; everywhere was a brilliant silvery glisten with gleams of amethyst and agate, ochre and opal like momentary meteors in the marvellous dazzle. What a day to be hunted across country like a wild animal by human bloodhounds! What a day to die by a bullet, or, worse still, on yonder historic hill as the Regulators died!