Since the street was busily astir with redcoat officers and men coming and going, and any squad of these might be the questioners to doubt my threadbare courier tale, I lost no time in running up the steps and hammering a peal with the heavy knocker. Through the side-lights I could see that the wide entrance hall was for the moment unoccupied; but at the knocker-lifting I had a flitting glimpse of some one--a little man all in sober black--coming down the stair. There was no immediate answer to my peal, but when I would have knocked again the door was swung back and I stepped quickly within to find myself face to face with--Margery. I know not which of the two of us was the more dumbfounded; but this I do know; that I was still speechless and fair witless when she swept me a low-dipped curtsy and gave me my greeting. "I bid you good evening, Captain Ireton," she said, coldly; and then with still more of the frost of unwelcome in her voice: "To what may we be indebted for this honor?" Now, chilling as these words were, they thrilled me to my finger-tips, for they were the first she had spoken to me since the night of my offending in the black gorge of the far-off western mountains. None the less, they were blankly unanswerable, and had the door been open I should doubtless have vanished as I had come. Of all the houses in the town this was surely the last I should have run to for refuge had I known the name of its master; and it was some upflashing of this thought that helped me find my tongue. "I never guessed this was your father's house," I stammered, bowing low to match her curtsy. "I beg you will pardon me, and let me go as I came." She laid a hand on the door-knob. "Is--is there any one here whom you would see?" she asked; and now her eyes did not meet mine, and I would think the chill had melted a little. "No. I was begging a night's lodging of a friend whose house is full. He sent me here with a note to--ah--to your father, as I suppose, though in his haste he did not mention the name." She held out her hand. "Give me the letter." "Nay," said I; "that would be but thankless work. Knowing me, your father must needs conceive it his duty to denounce me." "Give it me!" she insisted; this with an impatient little stamp of the foot and an upglance of the compelling eyes that would have constrained me to do a far foolisher thing, had she asked it.