To Have and To Hold, page 129 by Mary Johnston
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rkening houses of the town, the ever thickening clouds, and the bending trees; now speaking to my wife, who sat in the chair I had drawn for her before the fire, her hands idle in her lap, her head thrown back against the wood, her face white and still, with wide dark eyes. We waited for we knew not what, but the light still burned in the Governor's house, and we could not sleep and leave it there.
It grew later and later. The wind howled down the chimney, and I heaped more wood upon the fire. The town lay in darkness now ; only in the distance burned like an angry star the light in the Governor's house. In the lull between the blasts of wind it was so very still that the sound of my footfalls upon the floor, the dropping of the charred wood upon the hearth, the tapping of the withered vines without the window, jarred like thunder.
Suddenly madam leaned forward in her chair. "There is some one at the door," she said.
As she spoke, the latch rose and some one pushed heavily against the door. I had drawn the bars across. "Who is it?" I demanded, going to it.
"It is Diccon, sir," replied a guarded voice outside. "I beg of you, for the lady's sake, to let me speak to you."
I opened the door, and he crossed the threshold. I had not seen him since the night he would have played the assassin. I had heard of him as being in Martin's Hundred, with which plantation and its turbulent commander the debtor and the outlaw often found sanctuary.
"What is it, sirrah?" I inquired sternly.
He stood with his eyes upon the floor, twirling his cap in his hands. He had looked once at madam when he entered, but not at me. When he spoke there was the old bravado in his voice, and he threw up his head with the old reckless gesture. "Though I am no longer your man, sir," he said, "yet I hope that one Christian may warn another. The marshal, with a dozen men at his heels, will be here anon."
"How do you know?"
"Why, I was in the shadow by the Governor's window when the parson p