“Thank God,” said Northmour, “Aggie is not coming to-night.”

Aggie was the name of the old nurse; he had not thought of her until now; but that he should think of her at all was a trait that surprised me in the man.

We were again reduced to waiting.  Northmour went to the fireplace and spread his hands before the red embers, as if he were cold.  I followed him mechanically with my eyes, and in so doing turned my back upon the window.  At that moment a very faint report was audible from without, and a ball shivered a pane of glass, and buried itself in the shutter two inches from my head.  I heard Clara scream; and though I whipped instantly out of range and into a corner, she was there, so to speak, before me, beseeching to know if I were hurt.  I felt that I could stand to be shot at every day and all day long, with such remarks of solicitude for a reward; and I continued to reassure her, with, the tenderest caresses and in complete forgetfulness of our situation, till the voice of Northmour recalled me to myself.

“An air gun,” he said.  “They wish to make no noise.”

I put Clara aside, and looked at him.  He was standing with his back to the fire and his hands clasped behind him; and I knew by the black look on his face, that passion was boiling within.  I had seen just such a look before he attacked me, that March night, in the adjoining chamber; and, though I could make every allowance for his anger, I confess I trembled for the consequences.  He gazed straight before him; but he could see us with the tail of his eye, and his temper kept rising like a gale of wind.  With regular battle awaiting us outside, this prospect of an internecine strife within the walls began to daunt me.

Suddenly, as I was thus closely watching his expression and prepared against the worst, I saw a change, a flash, a look of relief, upon his face.  He took up the lamp which stood beside him on the table, and turned to us with an air of some excitement.

“There is one point that we must know,” said he.  “Are they going to butcher the lot of us, or only Huddlestone?  Did they take you for him, or fire at you for your own beaux yeux?”

“They took me for him, for certain,” I replied.  “I am near as tall, and my head is fair.”

“I am going to make sure,” returned Northmour; and he stepped up to the window, holding the lamp above his head, and stood there, quietly affronting death, for half a minute.

Clara sought to rush forward and pull him from the place of danger; but I had the pardonable selfishness to hold her back by force.

“Yes,” said Northmour, turning coolly from the window, “it’s only Huddlestone they want.”

“Oh, Mr. Northmour!” cried Clara; but found no more to add; the temerity she had just witnessed seeming beyond, the reach of words.

He, on his part, looked at me, cocking his head, with a fire of triumph in his eyes; and I understood at once that he had thus hazarded his life, merely to attract Clara’s notice, and depose me from my position as the hero of the hour.  He snapped his fingers.