Down once more, I was getting into my coat when Margaret, who was
talking to the Highlander, looked at me and said quietly, "Pray, Master
Wheatman, fetch me the domino from my room!"
She said it simply and mistress-like, and of course I shot off to do her
bidding. I supposed, as I went, that it was the white snow all around that
had brought out the blue in her eyes so vividly.
In the inn I found the host, the lantern still dangling from his finger,
notwithstanding his greater woe, and his pleasant, placid wife weeping
bitterly. Of the original twenty guineas of the Major's, I now had only
four left, and these I thrust into her hand as I passed, and told her to
be comforted.
From my shooting the dragoon on the roof to my running upstairs for the
domino was in all not more than twenty minutes. I skipped over the man who
had fallen to my maiden sword. He was lying between the door of the
Colonel's room and that of Margaret's, and opposite one of the doors on
the other side of the passage. Darting into Margaret's room, I recovered
the domino.
I was only a moment, but in that moment some one opened the door in the
passage against which the man lay and so brought him into the light, and I
could not help taking a look at him.
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