“All’s well,” he replied.  “I’ll give an account of myself.”  And he stepped forward, grasping one of his pistols, not by the breech, but by the barrel.

“Stop where you are!” said the sentry, menacingly.

Philip stood still, raised the pistol, flung it at the lantern, and instantly dropped to his knees.  The sentinel’s musket flashed and cracked.  Total darkness ensued.  Philip glided forward between the two men, his footfalls drowned by the sound of their curses.  When past them, he hurled his remaining pistol back over his shoulder toward a mass of bushes on the further side of the sentinels.  Its descent through the brush had some sound of a man’s leap, and would, he hoped, lead the enemy to think he might have escaped in that direction.  By the time the noise of a commotion reached him, with orders to turn out the guard, he was past the building used as a prison for his fellow rebels, and was hastening along the side of the common—­now diverted to camp uses of the British as it had been to those of the rebels—­able to find the rest of his way in Egyptian blackness.  He knew what alleys to take, what short cuts to make by traversing gardens, what ways were most like to be deserted.  The streets in the part of the town through which he had to pass were nearly empty, the taverns, the barracks, and most of the officers’ quarters being elsewhere.  And so, with a heart elated beyond my power of expression, he leaped finally into the rear garden of the Faringfield mansion, and strode, as if on air, toward the veranda.

He had guessed that the family would be in the smaller parlour, or the library, and so he was not surprised to see all the lower windows dark that were visible from the direction of his approach.  But, which gave him a thrill of delightful conjecture, two upper windows shone with light—­those above the great parlour and hence belonging to one of the chambers formerly occupied by Margaret and him.  He knew no reason why his wife should not still retain the same rooms.  She would, then, be there, and probably alone.  He might go to her while none was present to chill their meeting, none before whom her pride might induce her to conceal the completeness of her reconciliation, or to moderate the joy of her greeting.  Would she weep?  Would she laugh?  Would she cry out?  Would she merely fall into his arms with a glad smile and cling in a long embrace under his lingering kiss?  He trembled like a schoolboy as he climbed the trellis-work to enter by a window.

Creeping up the sloping, snow-covered roof of the veranda, he came at length to the window, and looked in.  The chamber was empty, but the door was ajar that led to the apartment in front, used as a sitting-room.  She must be in that room, for his first glance had recognised many of her trinkets and possessions in the first chamber.  He asked himself if the years had changed her:  they would have made her a little graver, doubtless.