"Let us make certain," I said; "maybe all are in the mill."
We went round the buildings and called, but there was no answer anywhere. And all the while I was thinking what I could do now for this poor girl who was thus dependent on me. Perhaps she had other friends in the town, but, if they lived in the broad streets, I dared not take her back through a mob whose ways would not grow quieter as night went on. If she had any other refuge outside the town it were well.
But she had not; nor was there any house to which she dared go in Hexham now. I had to ask her this directly, for it was plain that the mill was deserted. And I will say that she met the trouble bravely.
"I will bide here," she said. "Mayhap they will come back now that all is quiet."
At first that plan seemed good, but then I remembered that the first place where the purveyors for the army would seek for forage of all sorts would be in a miller's stores. There would be no real refuge here for more than the few hours of darkness left. Then, of course, as I thought of keeping guard here, the remembrance of what my cave held came back to me plainly. I cannot say that it had ever been forgotten, but this trouble had seemed but a passing one. Now that I found it more than that, the other duty came forward again.
Even as I realised that I owed all to the Queen first, I saw what I might do both for her and Annot. The girl had trusted me, and I would trust her entirely, for with her as an attendant our Queen would at least feel her captivity less.
"Annot," I said, "there is one place to which I can take you where you will be safe till all is quiet again, and there you will be with a lady who is a fugitive like yourself from these people."
She looked at me eagerly, and answered at once--
"Take me there, I pray you, Master Peel. I trust myself to you in all things."
"Ay, and now the trust must be altogether on my side, for, if I take you to this lady, I am putting the greatest of secrets in your charge."
"If some poor lady is hiding alone, let me go to her," she answered; "then I may feel that my own trouble has brought help to another. Truly I have trusted you, good friend, for, from the moment we came here, I knew that you could not have been sent for me, as the soldier said."