Elizabeth opened the door and looked out. Her aunt accompanied her. Old Valentine gazed with a sagely deploring expression at the torn-up bills on the floor. Colden stood where he had been, lest by some chance the enemy might return and discover his relief from straint. "Oh," cried Elizabeth, at the door, as the light horsemen filed out the gate and up the branch road towards the highway, "to see the miserable rebel mounted on my Cato!" "He looks well on him," said her aunt. It was a brief flow of light from the fresh-risen moon, between wind-driven clouds, that enabled Miss Sally to make this observation. "Looks well! The tatterdemalion!" And Elizabeth came from the door, as if loathing further sight of him. But Miss Sally continued to look after the riders, as their dark forms were borne rapidly towards the post-road. "Nay, I think he is quite handsome." "Pah! You think every man is handsome!" said the niece, curtly. Miss Sally turned from the door, quite shocked. "Why, Elizabeth, you know I'm the least susceptible of women!" Old Mr. Valentine nodded sadly, as much as to say, "I know that, all too well!" As the racing clouds now rushed over the moon, and the horsemen's figures, having become more and more blurred, were lost in the blackness, Miss Sally closed and bolted the door. The horses were faintly heard coming to a halt, at about the junction of the branch road with the highway, then moving on again rapidly, not further towards the south, as might have been expected, but back northward, and finally towards the east. Meanwhile Elizabeth stood in the hall, her rage none the less that its object was no longer present to have it wreaked on him. Such hate, such passionate craving for revenge, had never theretofore been awakened in her. And when she realized the unlikelihood of any opportunity for satisfaction, she was exasperated to the limit of self-control. "If you had only had some troops here!" she said to Colden. "I know it! May the rascal perish for finding me at such a disadvantage! 'Twas my choice between denying my colors and becoming his prisoner." This brought back to Elizabeth's mind the talk between Colden and Peyton, which her feelings had for the time driven from her thoughts. But now a natural curiosity asserted itself. "So you knew the fellow before?" "I met him in '75," said Colden, blurting awkwardly into the explanation that he knew had to be made, though little was his stomach for it. "He was passing through New York from Boston to his home in Virginia, after he had deserted from the King's army--" "Deserted?" Elizabeth opened wide her eyes. Colden briefly outlined, as far as was desirable, what he knew of Peyton's story. It was Miss Sally who then said: "And he disarmed you in a duel?"