the outline of her shape was visible near the still open window, leaning out. Miss Helstone asked no questions: she stole to her side. The dog recommenced barking furiously; suddenly he stopped, and seemed to listen. The occupants of the dining-room listened too, and not merely now to the flow of the mill-stream: there was a nearer, though a muffled sound on the road below the churchyard; a measured, beating, approaching sound; a dull tramp of marching feet.
It drew near. Those who listened, by degrees, comprehended its extent. It was not the tread of two, nor of a dozen, nor of a score of men: it was the tread of hundreds. They could see nothing: the high shrubs of the garden formed a leafy screen between them and the road. To hear, however, was not enough; and this they felt as the troop trode forwards, and seemed actually passing the Rectory. They felt it more when a human voice—though that voice spoke but one word—broke the hush of the night.
"Halt!"
A halt followed: the march was arrested. Then came a low conference, of which no word was distinguishable from the dining-room.
"We must hear this," said Shirley.
She turned, took her pistols from the table, silently passed out through the middle window of the dining-room, which was, in fact, a glass door, stole down the walk to the garden-wall, and stood
