Maisie's mouth dropped to a pathetic pout of despair. It was so much easier comforting a man, she thought, than a girl. Now, if it had been William-- But at that moment a loud and continuous knocking was heard at the outer door, which had been so carefully barred against the storm. "It is my dear!" cried Maisie, jumping eagerly to her feet, "and I had not heard his footstep turn into the street." And she looked reproachfully at Kate, as though in this instance she had been entirely to blame. "It is the first time that I ever missed hearing that," she said, and ran quickly down the stairs. As she threw open the fastenings a noisy gust of wind rioted in, and slammed all the doors with claps like thunder. "William!" she cried, "dear lad, forgive me; I could not hear your foot for the noise of the wind, though I was listening. Believe me that--" But it was the face of an unknown man which confronted her. He was clad in a blue military mantle, under which a uniform was indistinctly seen. "Your pardon, madam," he said, looking down upon her, "are you not Mistress Gordon, the wife of Captain William Gordon, of the regiment of the Covenant?" "I am indeed his wife," said Maisie, with just pride; "what of him?" "I am bidden to say that he urgently requires your presence at the guard-house." Maisie felt all the warm blood ebb from about her heart. But she only bit her lip, and set her hand hard over her breast. "He is ill--he is dead!" she panted, scarcely knowing what she said. "Nay," said the man, "not ill, and not dead. But he sends you word that he needs you urgently." "You swear to me that he is not dead?" she said, seizing him fiercely by the wet cuff of his coat. For the man had laid his hand upon the edge of the wind-blown door to keep it steady as he talked, or perhaps in fear lest it should be shut in his face before his errand was accomplished. Without waiting for another word besides the man's reiterated assurance, Maisie fled up-stairs, and telling Kate briefly that her husband needed her and had sent for her to the guard-room, she thrust a sheathed dagger into her bosom, and ran back down to the outer door. "Bide a moment, and I will come with you!" cried Kate, after her. "No, no," answered Maisie, "stay you and keep the house. I shall not be long away. Keep the water hot against William's return." So saying, she shut the outer door carefully behind her, and hurried into the night. Maisie had expected that the man who had brought the message would be waiting to guide her, but he had vanished. The long street of Zaandpoort was bare and dark from end to end, lit only by the lights within the storm-beaten houses where the douce burghers of Amersfort were sitting at supper or warming their toes at an early and unwonted fire.