Shirley laughed for the first time in their interview, and rose and placed her hands on her brother’s shoulders.

“Do it, Dick!  He’s undoubtedly a wicked, a terribly wicked and dangerous character.”

“I tell you I’ll find him,” he said tensely, putting up his hands to hers, where they rested on his shoulders.  She laughed and kissed him, and when her hands fell to her side the message was in her gloved fingers.

“I’ll help you, Dick,” she said, buttoning her glove.

“That’s like you, Shirley.”

“If you want to find Mr. Armitage—­”

“Of course I want to find him—­” His voice rose to a roar.

“Then turn around; Mr. Armitage is just behind you!”

“Yes; I needed my man for other business,” said Armitage, folding his arms, “and as you were very much occupied I made free with the rear veranda and changed places with him.”

Claiborne walked slowly toward him, the anger glowing in his face.

“You are worse than I thought—­eavesdropper, housebreaker!”

“Yes; I am both those things, Captain Claiborne.  But I am also in a great hurry.  What do you want with me?”

“You are a rogue, an impostor—­”

“We will grant that,” said Armitage quietly.  “Where is your warrant for my arrest?”

“That will be forthcoming fast enough!  I want you to understand that I have a personal grievance against you.”

“It must wait until day after to-morrow, Captain Claiborne.  I will come to you here or wherever you say on the day after to-morrow.”

Armitage spoke with a deliberate sharp decision that was not the tone of a rogue or a fugitive.  As he spoke he advanced until he faced Claiborne in the center of the room.  Shirley still stood by the window, holding the soiled paper in her hand.  She had witnessed the change of men at the end of the room; it had touched her humor; it had been a joke on her brother; but she felt that the night had brought a crisis:  she could not continue to shield a man of whom she knew nothing save that he was the object of a curious enmity.  Her idle prayer that her own land’s commonplace sordidness might be obscured by the glamour of Old World romance came back to her; she had been in touch with an adventure that was certainly proving fruitful of diversion.  The coup de theatre by which Armitage had taken the place of his servant had amused her for a moment; but she was vexed and angry now that he had dared come again to the house.

“You are under arrest, Mr. Armitage; I must detain you here,” said Claiborne.

“In America—­in free Virginia—­without legal process?” asked Armitage, laughing.

“You are a housebreaker, that is enough.  Shirley, please go!”

“You were not detached from the army to find a housebreaker.  But I will make your work easy for you—­day after to-morrow I will present myself to you wherever you say.  But now—­that cable message which my man found in your sheep pasture is of importance.  I must trouble you to read it to me.”