126
Joan, The Curate.
CHAPTER IX.
TRAITRESS OR FRIEND?
The October sunshine was bright; there was a pleasant, bracing breeze coming from the sea; the brown trees were at their prettiest, as they shed their showers of dead leaves at the lightest touch of the wind: yet the brigadier and Lieutenant Tregenna, as they rode side by side away from Rede Hall, noted none of these things: for to them the sky was lowering and the wind whistled of failure and disappointment.
"Did you search the great barn?" asked Tregenna, interrupting a string of his companion's curses upon things in general and women in particular.
"Ay, every corner of it, and poked into every cranny," answered General Hambledon, morosely. "There was naught in the whole place, but a couple of rusty plowshares, a
