Again she was met by the glance that looked through and beyond her, as if she stood between Rupert and some settled purpose. It seemed so short a while since she had sat at the spinet, had seen his eyes hungry with her, as if she were all his world; and now he scarcely heeded her. The riddle was so easy for a man to guess, so hard for a woman; and Nance, soldier-bred as she was, was piqued by the master’s grave, single-minded outlook on the task in hand. “Your post, Nance?” he echoed. “With mother, away from any chance of bullets.” “Did I shoot so badly, then--those days we practised up the fields?” “No; but this is men’s work, Nance.” “You have a garrison of three.” Some wayward humour, some wish to hurt him, clouded all her usual kindliness. He was strong and did not need her; and she missed something pleasant that had threaded the weariness of these last days. “There’s Simon, steady enough, but old. There is Ben Shackleton. And there is--yourself, Rupert, very young to musketry. Are you wise to refuse your last recruit?” The taunt found its mark. This daughter of Squire Roger’s had an odd power to touch the depths in him, whether for pain or keen, unreasoning delight. A moment since he had tasted happiness, had had no thought save one--that he was master here, fighting an enemy of flesh and blood at last. And now the old unrest crept in, the vague self-distrust that had clouded earlier days. “We’re few, and have no skill,” he said, with an irony that was stubborn and weary both; “but I was bred, Nance, to put women in the background at these times.” She looked at him, as he stood in the cloudy moonlight filtering through the window. She knew this tone of his so well--knew that her hold on him was not weakened, after all. “Oh, you were bred to that superstition?” she said lightly. “As if women were ever in the background, Rupert! Why, our business in life is to dance in front of you--always a little in front of you, lest you capture us. Men, so Lady Royd says, are merry until--until--they have us safe in hand.” She dropped him a curtsey; and, before he found an answer, she was gone. And the master turned to the casement, hoping for the sound of a footfall without, the chance of another quick, haphazard shot. The wind had dropped to a little, whining breeze; but there was no other sound about this house that stood for the Stuart against odds. The snow was thickening. Rupert watched the flakes settle on the window-sill, ever a little faster, till a three-inch ridge was raised. And the old trouble returned. This had been his life here--the silence, the dumb abnegations, slow and cold in falling, that had built a wall between himself and happiness. And suddenly he brushed his hand sharply across the sill, scattering the snow. It was his protest against the buried yesterdays. Then he took up the three muskets he had fired, and one by one reloaded them. And after that he waited.