About six o'clock on the evening of the same day, the cottage of Mrs. Clare was empty. The good widow herself stood at the garden gate, and looked up the road into the wood, along which the western sun was streaming low. After gazing for a moment in that direction, she turned her eyes to the left, and then down the edge of the wood, which stretched along in a tolerably even line till it reached the farther angle. The persevering dragoons were patrolling round it still; and Mrs. Clare murmured to herself, "How will he ever get out, if they keep such a watch?" She was then going into the cottage again, when a hurried step caught her ear, coming apparently from the path which led from the side of Halden to the back of the house, and thence round the little garden into the road. "That sounds like Harding's step," thought the widow; and her ear had not deceived her. In another minute, she beheld him turn the corner of the fence and come towards her; but there was a heated and angry look upon his face, which she had never seen there before; and--although she had acted for the best, and not without much consideration, in sending Kate upon Mr. Radford's commission, and not going herself--she feared that her daughter's lover might not be well pleased his bride should undertake such a task. As he came near, the symptoms of anger were more apparent still. There was the cloudy brow, the flashing eye, the hurried and impetuous walk, which she had often seen in her own husband--a man very similar in character to him who now approached her--when irritated by harsh words; and Widow Clare prepared to do all she could to soothe him ere Kate's return. But Harding did not mention her he loved, demanding, while yet at some distance, "Where is Mr. Radford, Mrs. Clare?" "He is not here, Mr. Harding," replied the widow; "he has not been here since the morning. But what makes you look so cross, Harding? You seem angry." "And well I may be," answered Harding, with an oath. "What do you think they have set about?--That I informed against them, and betrayed them into the hands of the dragoons: when, they know, I saw them safe out of the Marsh; and it must have been their own stupidity, or the old man's babbling fears, that ruined them--always trusting people that were sure to be treacherous, and doubting those he knew to be honest. But I'll make him eat his words, or cram them down his throat with my fist." "Why, he spoke quite kindly of you this morning, Harding," said the widow; "there must be some mistake." "Mistake!" cried the smuggler, sharply; "there is no mistake.--It is all over Hythe and Folkestone already; and every one says that it came from him. Can you not tell me where he is gone?--Which way did he turn?" "Towards his own house," replied Mrs. Clare; "but you had better come in, Harding, and get yourself cool before you go to him. You will speak angrily now, and mischief may come of it. I am sure there is some mistake."