"Yea."

"And if I do not meet her?"

"If thou dost not meet her," said the lady-abbess, answering calmly,
"it will be because she is detained on the road."

I had to believe her, and yet I was very skeptical. As I walked out of
the door the man was at my heels. He followed me out on to the wooden
stoop and nodded to Hiram.

"Who is that, Hiram?" I whispered as he leaned across the back of a
horse, adjusting some leathern buckle.

"That?" said Hiram under his breath. "That's a deep 'un: that's Elder
Nebson."

Great was the dissatisfaction of the stout-hearted Splinter at my
retreat, as he called it, from the enemy's ground.

"I'd ha' liked nothin' better than to beat up them quarters. I thought
every minit' you'd be calling me, and was ready to go in." And he
clenched his fist in a way that showed unmistakably how he would have
"gone in" had he been summoned. By this time we were driving on
briskly toward the river-road. "You wa'n't smart, I reckon, to leave
that there house. It was your one chance, hevin' got in. Ten chances
to one she's hid away som'eres in one of them upper rooms," and he
pointed to a row of dormer-windows, "not knowin' nothin' of your bein'
there."