"At his suggestion, or at your own, Bob?" asked Maud, shaking her head.
"To own the truth, it was, in some degree, at my own. It seemed so very unmilitary for two old soldiers to allow themselves to be shut up in ignorance of what their enemies were at, that I could not resist the desire to make a little _sortie_. You must feel, dear Maud, that our motive was _your_ safety--the safety, I mean, of my mother, and Beulah, and nil of you together--and you ought to be the last to blame us."
The tint on Maud's cheek deepened as Robert Willoughby laid so heavy an emphasis on "_your_ safety;" but she could not smile on an act that risked so much more than was prudent.
"This is well enough as to motive," she said, after a pause; "but frightfully ill-judged, I should think, as to the risks. You do not remember the importance our dear father is to us all--to my mother--to Beulah--even to me, Bob."
"Even to _you_, Maud!--And why not as much to _you_ as to any of us?"
Maud could speak to Beulah of her want of natural affinity to the family; but, it far exceeded her self-command to make a direct allusion to it to Robert Willoughby. Still, it was now rarely absent from her mind; the love she bore the captain and his wife, and Beulah, and little Evert, coming to her heart through a more insidious and possibly tenderer tie, than that of purely filial or sisterly affection. It was, indeed, this every-day regard, strangely deepened and enlivened by that collateral feeling we so freely bestow on them who are bound by natural ties to those who have the strongest holds on our hearts, and which causes us to see with their eyes, and to feel with their affections. Accordingly, no reply was made to the question; or, rather, it was answered by putting another.
"Did you see anything, after all, to compensate for so much risk?" asked Maud, but not until a pause had betrayed her embarrassment.
"We ascertained that the savages had deserted their fires, and had not entered any of the cabins. Whether this were done to mislead us, or to make a retreat as sudden and unexpected as their inroad, we are altogether in the dark. My father apprehends treachery, however; while, I confess, to me it seems probable that the arrival and the departure may be altogether matters of accident. The Indians are in motion certainly, for it is known that our agents are busy among them; but, it is by no means so clear that _our_ Indians would molest captain Willoughby--Sir Hugh Willoughby, as my father is altogether called, at head-quarters."