And as he closed it we knew, by the voices without, that he had encountered the sergeant in the gallery. CHAPTER V Sir Michael carried with him the one candle he had brought into my chamber, so we stood in the dark as if turned to stone by the sound of the sergeant's voice without, most horribly dreading that he would again enter, and all our work be undone. How long this lasted I do not know, but at last we heard him and my father walk together down the gallery to the stairhead, conversing in subdued tones. Sir Michael told him, as I did afterwards learn, that I had been mightily frightened and disturbed, and was now at his desire composing myself again to sleep. And the man replied that, as far as my chamber was concerned, he was satisfied, since he had discovered complete warranty of the tale I had told in the hat he then held in his hand, having found it where I had said it should lie. He added that he well knew the stigma of cruelty lying upon his regiment, yet he, for one, was vastly sorry that matters had so fallen as to discompose a young gentlewoman that was, he believed, the most beautiful and kind-hearted in the kingdom. And I have often thought of it as a thing passing strange that the first tribute I received in my life to the charms of my person did proceed from a man to whom I had most shamelessly lied, he being one of a company famed in all the world for wickedness and cruelty. And I have prayed to God that what good there was in this man might not be utterly cast away. So, while we two, Ned and I, sat almost silent above-stairs in the dark, striving to smother the sound of the passion of tears that had seized upon me, my father descended the stair with the sergeant, thinking soon to be rid of him and his men; but was speedily disappointed in finding that the man had no intention to abandon his search, although he showed his altered temper in putting himself at my father's orders, whether to continue at once his visitation of the house from garret to cellar, or to set strict guard upon all its approaches till morning, then to complete his survey in the better light. "For," said he, throwing poor Ned's damaged hat upon the table of the great hall where they stood, "though we do know the rascal was without, and that your worship does not willingly harbor him, we have no testimony that he did not get in after he had lost his hat. Some soft-hearted kitchen-maid might well----"