It had now begun to rain in very earnest; and was like to rain harder ere the storm passed.  My clothes being my best, I instinctively stepped into the doorway; and, of a sudden, she was there too, barring my entry, flushed and dangerous, demanding the reason of my intrusion.

“Why,” said I astonished, “may I not seek shelter from a storm in a ruined sugar-house, without asking by your leave?”

“This sap-house is my own dwelling!” she said hotly.  “It is where I live!”

“Oh, Lord,” said I, bewildered, “—­ if you are like to take offense at everything I say, or look, or do, I’ll find a hospitable tree somewhere——­”

“One moment, sir——­”

“Well?”

She stood looking at me in the doorway, then slowly dropped her eyes, and in the same law voice I had heard once before: 

“I ask your pardon once again,” she said.  “Please to come inside—­ and close the door.  An open door draws lightning.”

It was already drawing the rain in violent gusts.

The thunder began to bang with that metallic and fizzling tone which it takes on when the bolts fall very near; flash after flash of violet light illuminated the shack at intervals, and the rafters trembled as the black shadows buried us.

“Have you a light hereabout?” I asked.

“No,”

For ten minutes or more the noise of the storm made it difficult to hear or speak.  I could scarce see her now in the gloom.  And so we waited there in silence until the roar of the rain began to die away, and it slowly grew lighter outside and the thunder grew more distant.

I went to the door, looked out into the dripping woods, and turned to her.

“When will you bring the Sagamore to me?” I demanded.

“I have not promised.”

“But you will?”

She waited a while, then: 

“Yes, I will bring him.”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

“You promise?”

“Yes.”

“And if it rains again’’

“It will rain all night, but I shall send you the Sagamore.  Best go, sir.  The real tempest is yet to break.  It hangs yonder above the Hudson.  But you have time to gain the Lockwood House.”

I said to her, with a slight but reassuring smile, most kindly intended: 

“Now that I am no longer misunderstood by you, I may inform you that in what you do for me you serve our common country.”  It did not seem a pompous speech to me.

“If I doubted that,” she said, “I had rather pass the knife you wear around my throat than trouble myself to oblige you.”

Her words, and the quiet, almost childish voice, seemed so oddly at variance that I almost laughed; but changed my mind.

“I should never ask a service of you for myself alone,” I said so curtly that the next moment I was afraid I had angered her, and fearing she might not keep her word to me, smiled and frankly offered her my hand.