"On the Bedford road! do you hear the horses? Do you hear them running?" "W-what horses?" "Tarleton's!" she gasped, pressing her white face between her hands. "Can't you hear their iron scabbards rattle? Can't you hear their bugle horn? Where is Jack? _Where_ is Jack?" A flurry of mellow music burst out among the trees, followed by a loud report. "Oh, God!" she whispered, "the British!" Brown stared at her. "Why, that's only an automobile horn--and their tire just blew out," he began, astonished. But she sprang past him, calling, "Jack! Jack! Where are you?" and he heard the door fly open and her childish cry of terror outside in the sunshine. The next second he followed her, running through the hall and out through the door to the porch; and at the same moment a big red touring car came to a standstill before the house; the chauffeur descended to put on a new tire, and a young girl in motor duster and hood sprang lightly from the tonneau to the tangled grass. As she turned to look at the house she caught sight of him. Brown took an uncertain step forward; and she came straight toward him. Neither spoke as they met face to face. He looked at her, passed his hand over his eyes, bewildered, and looked again. She was slim and red-haired and slightly freckled, and her mouth was perhaps a shade large, and it curled slightly at the corners, and her eyes were quite perfectly made except that one was hazel-brown and the other a hazel-grey. She looked at him, and it seemed to him as though, in the fearless gravity of her regard, somewhere, somehow--perhaps in the curled corners of her lips, perhaps in her pretty and unusual eyes--there lurked a little demon of laughter. Yet it could not be so--there were only serenity and a child's direct sweetness in her gaze. "I suppose you have come to look at this old-time place?" she said. "People often come. You are perfectly welcome." And, as he made no answer: "If you care to see the inside of the house I will be very glad to show it to you," she added pleasantly. "Is--is it _yours_?" he managed to say, "or--or your sister's?" She smiled. "You mistake me for somebody else. I have no sister. This is the old Brown place--a very, very old house. It belonged to my great grandmother. If you are interested I will be glad to show you the interior. I brought the key with me." "But people--relatives of yours--are living there now," he stammered. "Oh, no," she said, smiling, "the house is empty. We are thinking of putting it in shape again. If you care to come in I can show you the quaint old fireplaces and wainscoting--if you don't mind dust." She mounted the step lightly and, fitting the key and unlocking the door--which he thought he had left open--entered. "Come in," she called to him in a friendly manner. He crossed the threshold to her side and halted, stunned. An empty house, silent, shadowy, desolate, confronted him. The girl beside him shook out her skirts and glanced at her dusty gloves.