Her attack, most unwarranted, considering the fact that a traitor had just hid in her house, stirred some spleen in me, and I bade her very stiffly to stand out of the way. Another light appeared just then at the head of the stairway, and Mistress Kate came down, fully dressed, looking very fine and handsome too, with a red flame in either cheek. She demanded the reason of our entry with a degree of haughtiness inferior in no wise to her mother’s. Again I explained, angered at these delays made by women who, handsome or not, may appear sometimes when they are not wanted. “Take the men, all except one to watch at the door, and search the house at once, sergeant,” said I. Whitestone, with an indifference to their bitter words most astonishing, led his men upstairs and left me to endure it all. I pretended not to hear, and taking the candle suddenly from Kate’s hands turned into a side room and began to poke about the furniture. But they followed me there. “I suppose you think this is very shrewd and very noble,” said Kate with a fine irony. I did not reply, but poked behind a sideboard with my pistol muzzle. Both Kate and her mother seemed to me, despite their efforts to repress it, to manifest a very great uneasiness. I did not wonder at it, for I knew they must fear to be detected in their collusion with the traitor. Kate continued to gibe at me. “Oh, well, it’s not Captain Chudleigh I’m looking for,” said I at last. “And in truth if it were, you’d be afraid to find him,” replied she, a sprightly flash appearing in her eye. I said no more, content with my hit. I found no one below stairs, and joined Whitestone on the second floor, the women still following me and upbraiding me. I looked more than once at Kate, and I could see that she was all in a tremor. I doubted not it arose from a belief that I had discovered her treachery, as well as from a fear that we would capture the chief traitor. Whitestone had not yet found our man, though he had been in every room on the second floor and even into the low-roofed garret. At this the two women became more contumelious, crying out that we were now shamed by our own acts. But we were confident that the man was yet in the house. I pushed into a large room which seemed to serve as a spare chamber. We had entered it once before, but I thought a more thorough search might be made. In one corner, some dresses hanging against the wall reached to the floor. I prodded one of them with my fist and encountered something soft. The dress was dashed aside and our man sprang out. There was a low window at the end of the room, and with one bound he was through it. Whitestone fired at his disappearing body, but missed. We heard a second shot from the man on guard below, and then we rushed pell-mell down the stairs to pursue him.