Will Gordon himself came out almost instantly in full uniform. One cheek was somewhat ruddy with sitting before the great fire, which cast pleasant gleams through the doorway into the outer hall of the guard. "Why, Maisie!" he cried, "what do you here, lassie?" He spoke in the kindly Scots of their Galloway Hills. Maisie started back in apprehensive astonishment. "Did you not send for me, William? A messenger brought me word an hour ago, or it may be less, that you needed me most urgently. I thought you had been sick, or wounded, at the least. So I spared not, but hasted hither alone, running all the way. But I came on the watch, and the officer sent this good man with me." Will Gordon laughed. "Some one hath been playing April-fool overly late in the day. If I catch him I will swinge him tightly therefor. He might have put thee in great peril, little one." "I had a dagger, William," said Maisie, determinedly, putting her hand on her breast; "and had I a mind I could speak bad words also, if any had dared to meddle with me." "Well, in a trice I shall be relieved," he said. "Come in by the fire. 'Tis not exactly according to the general's regulations. But I will risk the prince coming on such a night--or what would be worse, Mr. Michael Shields, who is our regimental chaplain and preceptor-general in righteousness." Presently they issued forth, Maisie and her husband walking close together. His arm was about her, and the one blue military cloak proved great enough for two. They walked along, talking right merrily, to the street of Zaandpoort. At the foot of the stair they stopped with a gasp of astonishment. The door stood open to the wall. "It hath been blown open by the wind," said Will Gordon. They went up-stairs, Maisie first, and her husband standing a moment to shake the drops of rain from the cloak. "Kate, Kate, where are you?" cried Maisie, as she reached the landing-place a little out of breath, as at this time was her wont. But she recoiled from what she saw in the sitting-room. The lamp burned calmly and steadily upon its ledge. But the chairs were mostly overturned. The curtain was torn down, and flapped in the gusts through the window, which stood open towards the canal. Kate's Bible lay fluttering its leaves on the tiles of the fireplace. The floor was stained with the mud of many confused footmarks. A scrap of lace from Kate's sleeve hung on a nail by the window. But in all the rooms of the house in the street of Zaandpoort there was no sign of the girl herself. She had completely vanished. Pale to the lips, and scarce knowing what they did, Will Gordon and his wife sat down at opposite sides of the table, and stared blankly at each other without speech or understanding. CHAPTER XV A NIGHT OF STORM I will now tell the thing which happened to Kate in the house in Zaandpoort Street that stormy night when for an hour she was left alone.