household below had ceased;
and in a moment more Mistress Margaret's voice had ceased too, as she
laid the book down.

Then, as if the world outside had waited for silence before speaking,
there came a murmur of sound from the further side of the house. Isabel
started up; surely there was anger in that low roar from the village; was
it this that her father had feared? Had she been remiss? Lady Maxwell too
sprang up and faced the window with wide large eyes.

"The letter!" she said; and took a quick step towards the door; but
Mistress Margaret was with her instantly, with her arm about her.

"Sit down, Mary," she said, "they will bring it at once"; and her sister
obeyed; and she sat waiting and looking towards the door, clasping and
unclasping her hands as they lay on her lap; and Mistress Margaret stood
by her, waiting and watching too. Isabel still stood by the window
listening. Had she been mistaken then? The roar had sunk into silence for
a moment; and there came back the quick beat of a horse's hoofs outside
on the short drive between the gatehouse and the Hall. They were right,
then; and even as she thought it, and as the wife that waited for news of
her husband drew a quick breath and half rose in her seat at the sound of
that shod messenger that bore them, again the roar swelled up louder than
ever; and Isabel sprang down from the low step of the window-seat into
the dusky room where the two sisters waited.

"What is that? What is that?" she whispered sharply.

There was a sound of opening doors, and of feet that ran in the house
below; and Lady Maxwell rose up and put out her hand, as a man-servant
dashed in with a letter.

"My lady," he said panting, and giving it to her, "they are attacking the
Rectory."

Lady Maxwell, who was half-way to the window now, for light to read her
husband's letter, paused at that.

"The Rectory?" she said. "Why--Margaret----" then she stopped, and Isabel
close beside her, saw her turn resolutely from the great sealed letter in
her hand to the door, and back again.

"Jervis told us, my lady; none saw him as he rode through--they were
breaking down the gate."

Then Lady Maxwell, with a quick movement, lifted the letter to her lips
and kissed it, and thrust it down somewhere out of sight in the folds of
her dress.

"Come, Margaret," she said.

Isabel followed them down the stairs and out through the hall-door; and
there, as they came out on to the steps that savage sna