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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 53134
   :PG.Title: The Admiral's Daughter
   :PG.Released: 2016-09-23
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Margaret Stuart Lane
   :DC.Title: The Admiral's Daughter
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1921
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE ADMIRAL'S DAUGHTER
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   .. _`SHE HERSELF ... WAS THE CENTRAL FIGURE. *Page* 118.`:

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      :alt: SHE HERSELF ... WAS THE CENTRAL FIGURE. *Page* 118.

      SHE HERSELF ... WAS THE CENTRAL FIGURE. *Page* `118`_.

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      THE
      ADMIRAL'S
      DAUGHTER

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      MARGARET
      STUART
      LANE

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      HUMPHREY MILFORD
      OXFORD UNIVERSITY
      PRESS
      LONDON

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      Reprinted 1927 in Great Britain by T. and A. CONSTABLE LTD.
      at the University Press, Edinburgh

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   CONTENTS

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   CHAP.

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I.  `THE 'FAIR RETURN'`_
II.  `GARTH HOUSE`_
III.  `A LETTER FROM KENSINGTON`_
IV.  `ROGER TREVANNION`_
V.  `'MY LITTLE NIECE'`_
VI.  `A LADY IN WAITING`_
VII.  `SIMONE LEBLANC`_
VIII.  `HAUNTED COVE`_
IX.  `A MORNING VISIT`_
X.  `FOREBODING`_
XI.  `AUNT AND NIECE`_
XII.  `CHARITY'S LETTER`_
XIII.  `THE ESCORT`_
XIV.  `A HALT ON THE ROAD`_
XV.  `IN THE HARNESS ROOM`_
XVI.  `EXETER`_
XVII.  `AN EAST WINDOW`_
XVIII.  `THE SIGNAL`_
XIX.  `THE GAOL YARD`_
XX.  `ZACCHARY'S QUEST`_
XXI.  `DAWN`_
XXII.  `THE ROAD TO THE WEST`_
XXIII.  `HOME`_
XXIV.  `ELISE PASSES OUT`_
XXV.  `A FAMILY PARTY`_
XXVI.  `'SUMER IS A-COMEN IN'`_





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.. _`THE 'FAIR RETURN'`:

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   CHAPTER I

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   THE *FAIR RETURN*

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Spring had come to the West Country, a joyous
spring laden with soft airs and odours of distant
flowering lands, and filling the hearts of men with a
restless delight.  It seemed impossible not to be happy, with
a blue sky flecked by little clouds running down to
meet a blue sea, the hedgerows gleaming with blackthorn,
and the pink tips of the beeches shining in the
sun.  Children were out in the copses, picking primroses;
farmers counted their lambs in the pasture, and
down in the harbour sailor boys watched the rising
tide and were all impatience to be aboard.

On the highest point of a headland to the west of
the village of Garth a youth was sitting, staring out on
the Channel.  A jutting ledge of rock, with a tall
boulder at its back, formed a natural chair of stone, and
from it the green sward dipped steeply to the cliff.
The boy's long, loosely set limbs, showing thin under
the wrinkles of his knee breeches, sprawled restlessly
across the rocky seat; the heels of his riding boots tore
at the grass.  In his fixed, seaward gaze there was
nothing of the expectancy and hope that marked the
faces of the youths in the harbour below.  His eyes,
that could be so merry, with gold lights dancing in the
brown, were sad and dark under the black lashes, and
his mouth, losing its shape of laughter, was set in hard
lines.  The world might be full of glamour, but 'twas
not for him; fortune and the hour were all awry; he
was out of tune with the spring.  And when from the
cobbled streets below rose the sound of sailors singing,
mingled with the noises which to a practised ear
betokened tide and time, the boy's black head dropped,
and with a smothered word he set his knees together
and drew his hands across his ears.

Sitting there he was unaware of the approach of light
footsteps along a narrow path that wound over the
headland, and only when a hand tapped his shoulder
did he raise his head.

'Marion!' he said, springing to his feet, a smile
banishing his dark looks; 'where have you been all this
time?'

The brown eyes, now all alight, met a pair of steady
grey ones whose owner dropped him a mock curtsey,
then stood looking at him from head to foot and back
again.

'You are a most uncomfortable person to know,
Roger,' she said.  'I cannot keep the same impression
of you two months together.  You are inches taller
than when I saw you last; your shoulders bid fair to
burst your jacket seams; your eyebrows are several
degrees blacker.  I wish you would determine what
length you are going to be, and abide by it.'

The boy looked ruefully down at the long limbs, all
unaware (as the girl knew) how generously nature had
dealt out her gifts to him, so that his great size was
carried with an easy grace.

'You'll have to bear with it, I fear,' he said, with a
shyness that always overcame him when considering
his length and girth.  'I suppose it comes of having
tall forbears.  Sit down and talk to me.  What is in
that basket?'

'Bake-meats for your funeral, I judged, coming
along.  Ah!  This is good.'

The girl settled on the stone seat, folding her hands
in her lap, and turned her face to the sea.  She did not
at once begin to speak, and her companion, knowing
her ways, sat silent.  He took the occasion to steal one
or two sidelong looks at the profile offered him, and in
doing so was assailed (not for the first time) by the
disquieting thought that his little playmate was altering
fast.  The chin was still a shade long, the nose rather
short, the mouth still drooped at the corners, the
freckles still over-ran the colourless skin: all the
peculiarities which Roger had not failed to bring to
the owner's notice, whenever an opportunity offered
itself during the last ten years, were without doubt
unchanged.  According to Marion, Roger's progress
towards manhood was measurable in square feet.  Her
own advancing womanhood was much less tangible a
growth.  Stealthily eyeing the averted face, Roger
found himself at a loss to define the change, and not
being given to habits of analysis, he left the mystery
unsolved.

For a while the girl watched the sea-gulls flashing
in the sunlight; then turned to her companion.

'This is good,' she repeated.  'For the first time for
six weeks I feel free.  All this age I have been in
attendance on Aunt Keziah.  She left us yesterday,
you know, and before she went she must needs turn the
house topsy-turvy.  Curnow has been at her wits' end.
My aunt had the guest-chamber hangings down, and
discovered a flaw in the gold stitch; and nothing
must serve but that Elise and I should sit with our
needles—and—in all this lovely weather—and go over
the whole pattern.  And then, after that—oh la!  I
won't talk about it.  That is where I've been.  And
you?'

'Lambs,' said the young man shortly.  'Calves,
pigs, chickens.  Twenty acres ploughed.'  The
unhappy expression came into his face.

The girl's grey eyes rested on him a moment.  'Still
the same?' she asked, her voice soft.

Roger looked at her and looked away again to the
sea, making no reply.  His companion waited, sitting
motionless.  Twenty times in his growing manhood he
had tried to shut the door on his sorrows, and twenty
times it had opened at the sound of those gentle tones.

'I do not know how long I can go on bearing it,' he
said, after a time.  'Last night I spoke to my mother
again, and she wept and begged me to wait another little
while ... gave me once more, as if I should forget—or
as if it could make any difference—the story of my
father's drowning.  For that matter, what sailor
would wish to die abed?  But women can never
understand that.'  Roger poked the grass with his
holly stick and went on, not seeing the look of mingled
pity and amusement that ran across his hearer's face.
'Do you know that down yonder in the harbour is the
*Fair Return*, put in from Plymouth, outward bound
for—oh—the other end of the world.  They are picking
up Jack Poole here.  *Jack Poole*.  And here am I, my
father's son, who had sailed to the Indies and back
before he was my age; and I am—a prosperous young
farmer.  Bah!  Did you see her, the *Fair Return*?'

'I did.'

'I cannot bear to see her set sail, and I cannot bear
not to.  That is why I am up here.  In another hour
the tide will turn and she will go.  I cannot bear to
look at the sea, even, and I cannot bear not to.  All my
life slipping away from me.  Pigs, calves, lambs.
Twenty acres ploughed.  And yonder'—the boy's
eyes sought the west—'uncharted seas to cross, lands
to explore, fortunes to find; the great, great world.
No one knows how big the world is.  And I shall never
know because my mother weeps and bids me wait—wait.
Do you know what the sea is like when it calls?'

The girl's face was turned away.

'Really, Roger,' she said lightly, after a moment's
pause.  'How old are you?  I should know, for there
are but twelve months between us.  Eighteen and a
half, are you?  And you say your life is slipping away.
You are truly laughable.  You might be an old man
of thirty.  Patience, Roger!' she went on, her voice
deepening a little.  'What guarantee have you from fate
that what has happened must continue so to happen—that
life must needs go on for ever as it is now?  Patience
for another little while!  Who knows what fortune,
what great fortune, is awaiting you?  What adventure,
what discoveries, what honours?  And how worth
while the little waiting will have been!  A ship seven
times fairer than the *Fair Return*—nay, seven ships.
Seven uncharted seas to cross—nay, seven worlds to
sail round!'  She laughed a brave little laugh, and
the youth turned his eyes from the sea and his
discontent....  'I should like to shake you!  Now
come along with me to old Mother Poole's.  I have a
dozen of eggs and one of Curnow's spiced cakes for her
in this basket, to comfort her somewhat for the
departure of that rascal of a son.'

Roger sprang to his feet and drew a long breath.
'And if I have seven ships, they shall all be called
Marion.  You always put heart in me, little Mawfy.
You are wiser than I.'

The girl made a grimace.  'I feel as old as Aunt
Keziah this minute, but don't make me also feel I
should wear cassock and bands, sir.'

Turning inland, the two walked slowly across the hill.

'So Mistress Penrock has gone away,' said Roger.
'I'm very glad.  I am mortally afraid of your Aunt
Keziah, although I only saw her once, when she was
walking with the Admiral.  Where is she going to
stay now?'

'At Bath, where she says she will hear a little of the
world, and not be dependent on a news sheet.  How
we live in this monstrously dull hole she cannot
conceive.  She said so her last night at supper.'

'And your father?'

'My father laughs at her.  He loves to hear her talk.
So does Elise, although she and my aunt are sworn
enemies'—Marion smiled—'But Aunt Keziah has
unsettled Elise a little, I think.  Elise has a great
hankering after gaiety.  Do you know, Roger, my
father has written asking my Aunt Constance to visit
us from London.  I have never seen her, but like you
with my Aunt Keziah, I am in terror of her already.
Aunt Keziah says (rather scornfully, I think, to
hide her envy) that Aunt Constance is one of the
greatest ladies at Court.'

'Why did the Admiral ask her then?' innocently
inquired Roger.  'Garth is not the place for a Court
beauty.'

'My father loves to be entertained.  Apart from
that, he thinks I am growing up entirely lacking in the
airs and graces that do become a young lady,' said
Marion demurely.  'And if my aunt will not come
here, perhaps I may go to her.'

'What!  You go to London—you?'

'I, sir, I.  Why not?'

Roger stood still and looked down at the mocking
face, the black bars of his eyebrows drawn together.

'I think the Admiral must be going mad!  London!
Pshaw!  The Court!—airs, graces, forsooth!  Intrigues
and ferments.  Discontent with the simple life
you are so contented with now.  Why cannot the
Admiral let well alone?'

Marion gave one of her father's sudden chuckles.

'You won't be here to see the result of my father's
folly, you know.  You'll be out on the seven seas
adventuring.  What can the happenings down here
count for a sailor?  Now, if you cannot hold that
basket carefully, give it to me.'

'I say the Admiral is mad,' said the young man
again, kicking at the stones in his path.  'What would
the world be were one ten times a sailor, without
places like Garth and Marions living in them?  'Tis
for men to go abroad, and maids to stay at home—or,
if one of you must go, let Elise go, who has a craving
for society, and to become an elegant lady.'

'Yes, but, Roger, I am my father's daughter, and
Elise is but his ward.  It is only fair that I should go
first and Elise later.  But all this is idle talk.  It may
never happen at all.  Look! is not that beautiful?'

The path had wound round the head of a copse that
curled like a snake in and out of the folds of the hills.
For some time their eyes had been on the trees and
bushes of the glades, the primroses starring their path.
Suddenly, bearing round the edge of the wood, they
were come in view of the village and open harbour
again, the cottages at the waterside nestling in the soft
haze, and beyond the twin headlands of the water
mouth, the sapphire bar of the sea.  The young man
looked once, but his eyes were caught by the lines of
the *Fair Return*, and with a pang he turned his face
inland again.

'Yes!' he said constrainedly.  'It is beautiful.'  His
keen gaze swept the valley.  'Ah—look
there—horsemen coming down the Bodmin Road.  What can
be wanting in Garth?'

'Mother Poole will tell us,' said Marion.  'She knows
everything.'

The fisherwife's cottage lay about a mile up the
valley, and the two, bearing down to it on narrow
paths, lost for a time the sight of the high road.

'See!  There are the horsemen still!' exclaimed
Marion when the prospect widened again.  'They
have turned into the lane.  They are making for
Mother Poole's cottage.  Oh Roger'—Marion gripped
his arm—'surely, surely 'tis nothing about Jack and
that terrible rising.  I thought it was forgotten long
ago.'

'The spies of Jeffreys never forget,' replied Roger
quietly.  'And Jack broke out of gaol, you remember.
He is still in the eyes of the law a prisoner.  Brave lad,
Jack!  But if 'tis he they're after, with luck they'll
miss their man.  He should be aboard by now, and
Jeffreys will need a long arm to catch Poole on the
*Fair Return* once past the mouth.  I think I'll just
run down and see what they're about.'

'Roger'—Marion's hand tightened—'you cannot,
you cannot.  There are six horsemen yonder, all
armed.  A word from you and they'll take you as well.'

'I cannot let Jack be caught like a rat in a trap,'
said Roger.  'Let go my arm, Mawfy.'

At that moment the cottage door opened and a man
in sailor's garb came down the path.  An old woman,
her apron at her eyes, stood in the doorway looking
after him.  Not till he reached the gate—perhaps
because the sadness of his mother's farewell dimmed
his eyes—did he become aware of the horsemen in the
path.  He gave one glance round, a step backward,
and then stood still.  It was too late.  In three minutes
the sorry little act was played out.  A couple of the
horsemen swung from their saddles.  Another covered
the sailor with his carbine.  The old woman, running
to her son's side, was roughly thrust away.

'No, Roger, no,' came Marion's whisper on the
slope above, almost in earshot of the group in the lane.
'No.'  Both her hands, white at the knuckles, gripped
his sleeve, the boy dragging away from her.  At that
moment the leader of the soldiers caught sight of the
two above.  The young man's attitude and desire were
clear to his eyes.  A few low words passed between the
men.  One set his horse at the slope and was recalled;
some urgency bade the group go on their way: one
of the swift decisions that serve to toss a straw into the
balance of fate.  They turned their horses, the sailor
running at the stirrup of his captor.

But the leader looked again, a searching look, at
the motionless youth on the slope.  And as he cantered
off, Marion dropped the arm she held and stared after
him, shivering slightly.

'I shall know him if I see him again, anyhow,' said
Roger, smiling.  'Come, Mawfy, there's old Mother
Poole sorely in need of comfort now.'





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.. _`GARTH HOUSE`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   GARTH HOUSE

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The little fishing village of Garth had two chief
points of pride: its harbour and the family of
Penrock.  And it was not the way of the villagers to hide
their light under a bushel.  They wore their honours
with a flourish and imposed them on the public eye.  Let
a fishing vessel manned by Devon men (the natural and
first-hand enemies of the Cornish) be driven before a
sudden gale to take shelter in Garth harbour, and her
crew by so much as a glance doubt the superiority of
that harbour, then those unhappy sailors would find
that the rocks without the river mouth had been a
kinder refuge.  And no one knew better than the
fishing folk of Garth how the fortunes of the village
had for generations been linked with those of the grey,
gabled house nestling in its combe a mile up the
valley.

They might rail at the 'Admur'l' as they liked; it
was an affectionate raillery.  That lean, wooden-legged
figure stumping about the terrace at Garth House was
their hearts' lord.  Like the king, he could do no wrong.
Whether his eyes twinkled with merriment or took on
that round, unwinking stare which was a sign of anger,
it was all one to the villagers.  They could as ill have
spared sun and wind as the Admiral, were he cross or
hearty.  In fact, if a week went by without a sight of
him 'down along,' they grew uneasy; and when his
rosy face, with its overhanging brows and huge nose,
looking like that of a benevolent eagle, peered in at
their casements, and a deep voice—as of the sea heard
through a fog—boomed out a greeting, all would be
well again.  His clumping tread heard on the cobblestones
would bring the children from the farther
cottages with their fingers tugging their forelocks, and
crying, ''Ere be the Admur'l, Mother.  Marnin',
Admur'l'; and down on the quay, 'Will 'ee be telling
us now, Admur'l, what so be's wrong with they
ropes?  Un don't knot like as they belong to do.'

Had the Admiral by some miracle been able to
change the flagstones of his terrace for the decks of a
ship, all Garth would have flocked to his standard.
But the Admiral's fighting days were over.  He had
seen his last shot fired in an engagement with the
Dutch, twenty years earlier, and few Garth seamen
had cared to enlist in another's service.  Fishing was
now the villagers' daily employment, fighting roving
French Channel pirates their recreation.  And if sometimes
their little craft ran up the river with cargoes of
a more mysterious nature than the harvest of the sea,
the wise Admiral was sure to know nothing about it.

For that matter, in these days he had ample for
his employment.  There were the affairs of the
parish over which, with Parson Stowe at his elbow as
chancellor, he cast an imperial eye.  He was a county
magistrate, and since the Restoration that had been no
easy office.  There were the lands and farming of
Garth to supervise.  Moreover, since the death of
my lady, now ten years ago, he had been father,
mother, and tutor to his little daughter Marion.

The Admiral had always been a headstrong,
self-willed man, hard to move except (as his wife knew)
by love, or (as his servants knew) by laughter.  And
when my lady died—leaving him harder stricken by the
blow than folk knew—he would consider no plans but
his own for the upbringing of his little daughter.  The
two were constantly together; the child, with her
solemn white little face which could suddenly break
into heartening laughter—a trick inherited from her
father—running backwards and forwards from the
length of his hand as they walked about the garden or
watched the men busy in the fields; the child sitting
at a high chair by her father's place at table, struggling
with the food he piled on her plate at dinner, or at
supper eating her bread and milk from the silver
bowl that bore her mother's name.  Every night the
Admiral stumped upstairs to kiss her face on the pillow
and draw the curtains close, his 'good-night' booming
on the stairs after he had closed the door with
something of the thunder of the tides on the headlands
below.

The first few months after my lady's death passed
thus.  Then the relatives of the Admiral begged to be
allowed—as they thought—to come to the rescue.
First the Admiral's two sisters, then various cousins,
offered to come to Garth and mother the motherless
maid for him.  The Admiral made short work of it,
answering each with a blank refusal.  The refusal
sufficed for all except one: Mistress Keziah Penrock,
a maiden lady living at Exeter in a great rambling
house that had been built by an eccentric maternal
grandfather in the shadow of old Rougemont Castle.
A correspondence lasting for some months ran between
the pair, the lady holding up the prospect of
'civilisation' in the Cathedral town in contrast with the
savage state of a remote Cornish village.  In the end,
Mistress Keziah, losing her temper, wrote a letter
which the wise Admiral left unanswered, knowing
that in no way would the last word be said quite so
effectively as in silence.  Meantime half a year had
run on and little Marion was still untended.

The parson, hearing rumour of this from Mrs. Curnow,
the housekeeper, ventured to come up and
argue the point with his patron over a game of piquet.
But the Admiral listened only to the first few words.

'Let her be brought up well or ill,' he said, laying
down his cards and fixing the parson with an unwinking,
parrot-like stare, 'she bides here alone with me.  The
matter is settled.  The housekeeper can teach her her
needle.  There's Mistress Trevannion yonder who,
I'll wager, will know when she wants a new petticoat.
You and I will see to her books.'

And that, Mr. Stowe found, was the end of the
argument; but the Admiral, roused (though he would
not have confessed it) to the sense of his child's needs,
bestirred himself.

The carrier brought down from a book-stall at the
sign of the *Three Bibles* on London Bridge, a box of
school books, French and Latin.  On these volumes,
which the small pupil turned over in unfeigned dislike,
the parson nodded approval.  'Must I learn all
these?' asked Marion, her mouth down at the corners.
'I had far rather play with you, Father.'

'And my daughter be brought up as unlearned as a
kitchen-wench?' retorted the Admiral.

The child pondered.  'Did my mother know all
these books?' she asked.

'She did,' said the Admiral, his great voice breaking.
'She was wiser than your father.'

Here the parson bethought himself.  'But the
English reading, sir,' he said.  'There's nothing here
but foreign tongues.'

His patron pointed to the two volumes that
constituted his own library: Hakluyt's Voyages and
Plutarch's Lives.  'And there is the Bible and Master
Shakespeare's works in her mother's room above,' he
said.  'If she thrives not on these she thrives not at
all.'

The lessons began, and brought with them a new
and secret joy for the Admiral.  He had never been
much of a school man, and his knowledge of Latin and
French grammar was slight.  True, he spoke the French
language with ease, and failed not to hector the parson
on the subject of accent; but he soon found that in
grammar he must needs be a pupil instead of tutor, as
he had originally stated to Mr. Stowe.  The Admiral
and Marion, sitting side by side, conned their
declensions together, the seaman's double bass and the
child's pipe blended.  In this duet the slender clear
notes were so often drowned that the parson plucked
up courage to remonstrate.

'Sir,' he said, 'if you will not be silent, how can I
hear the child construe?'

The Admiral regarding him, his face growing purple
with merriment, left the table to splutter at his ease on
the terrace.  Certainly, whatever the result might be
for Marion, schooling was good for her father, seeing
that, in the pages of his grammar, and under the
parson's solemn eye, he found again the laughter he
had lost.

Other matters went apace.  With the help of the
housekeeper and Mistress Trevannion of the Manor
House, the little girl learned not only to hem her sheets,
but to make those numerous 'stitches' in embroidery
that were her teacher's delight.  Concerning this
branch of her industry, it being beyond his ken, the
Admiral was disposed to be critical.  Secretly proud
as he was of the little maid's skill, he became
nevertheless uneasy about the hours she must needs bend over
her silks.  To the housekeeper's argument that all
young ladies spent their time thus he paid no heed save
to 'Pish!' and 'Pshaw.'  And one day when Mistress
Trevannion, thinking to win his approval, counted on
her fingers the stitches Marion had already learned—cross-stitch,
tent-stitch, long and short stitch, crewel
and feather-stitch, tent-on-the-finger, tent-on-the-frame,
gold-stitch, fern-stitch, satin-stitch, and rosemary
stitch—the Admiral cried for mercy and vowed
his brain was reeling.

'Enough,' he said, striking with his stick on the
stone flags of the hall.  'Let be.  There are hangings
and quilts and cushions in the house to last my
grandsons.  And the child has already wrought me three
night-caps in such a device I dare not sleep in them for
fear of dreams.  Let be.  She may stitch, if stitch she
must, at that satin sheet you have just set in her frame.
'Twill last her, on and off, a lifetime.  But she shall do
it when she pleases.'

Mrs. Trevannion was aghast at this heresy, but the
Admiral had his way.  The work-stand holding
Marion's 'wrought sheet'—a crimson quilt embroidered
with a pattern of flowers—was placed by the great
chimney in the hall, and the young lady took up her
silks and laid them down as she willed.  Much more to
her taste were her rides with Zacchary the groom and
Roger Trevannion, who from childhood days had been
her constant playfellow; the long mornings she and
Roger spent with their bows and arrows, shooting at
targets set by the Admiral; her days in Jack Poole's
boat on the river, the fishing expeditions in Bob
Tregarthen's cutter; her afternoons spent in the garden
on a pretence of reading with her father.  Once a week
a tutor rode out from Bodmin to teach her dancing and
music.  Next to the archery practice, in which sport she
was becoming unusually skilled, these lessons were
Marion's special delight, and were shared by Roger until
he went to school at Blundell's in Tiverton.

With Roger and her father, and kind Mistress
Trevannion in the background, Marion's life had been a
happy one.  Roger's going was a sore blow, and would
have saddened the autumn for her, had not fate put up
a finger to turn her thoughts in another direction.

Coming up from the village one morning, she found
the house in a commotion, the great travelling coach
with its four horses out in the courtyard, and Zacchary
ready, as outrider, with the chestnut mare.

'Here a be!' called one of the stable boys to some
one within, 'here be Mistress Marion.'

Forthwith Marion was hastily summoned to her
father's room, where Peter, his man, was dressing him
in his best clothes.  A travelling cloak and a couple of
pistols lay on the bed.

'Father!' cried Marion, 'where are you going?'

Then the Admiral put Peter to the door, saying he
would do very well now, and took the maid upon his
knee, pressing a kiss upon her troubled face.

'It means this, sweetheart,' he said.  'I'm going to
London.  Yes, to London, to bring some one back.  A
playmate for you, little one.'

He stroked her waving hair as he spoke, and kissed
her again, the child, as was her way, taking it very
quietly, but opening her grey eyes wide.

'You remember what I told you about poor de
Delauret?'

Marion nodded.  More than once her father had
related the incident of his friendship for the French
gentleman whom he had met on an expedition to the
Indies.  They had begun as enemies and crossed swords;
they had ended by being sworn friends.  De Delauret
had nursed the Admiral through a vile fever; the
Englishman later on had saved his friend from death at
the hand of a rascal, who was for having his purse and
jewelled rapier.  During the years of the Admiral's
fighting life the two had kept up a constant intercourse.
Once the Admiral had gone to visit de Delauret in his
home in Brittany, and found the Frenchman in sore
trouble.  His wife had just died and left him with an
infant daughter, and he himself was ailing.

'What shall I do,' says he, 'about the little one,
should I die?  My Elise may be a great heiress through
her mother's house.  She will be sought after, taken to
Court.  And, saving the King's Majesty, you know
what the Court of Louis is.'

The Admiral took the sick man's hand in his great one.

'You're not going to die,' says he.  'But, if you
do, s'death, man!  I'll take your child, and my wife
shall bring her up at Garth.'

So the compact was settled.  M. de Delauret did not
die.  But he was never again strong enough to travel,
the Admiral later on was invalided; so the two lost
sight of each other, and the great friendship was
expressed only in occasional letters.

'And now poor de Delauret's gone,' said the Admiral,
'and wrote me a letter before he died, reminding me
of my promise.  Three months the letter has been in
coming.  Elise and her woman are in London.  I must
hasten and fetch her at once.  And I must see my
lawyer in London so that he can arrange the poor
child's affairs with de Delauret's attorney in Paris.
That is the story, little one.  Kiss me and let me go.'

Presently with a great bustle the Admiral was gone,
Marion watching the coach from the terrace and waving
her handkerchief as the horses took the corner by the
church.  Then she flung herself on the grass and burst
into tears.

'I shall hate her,' she said.  'I hate her now.'

But when the Admiral came back, a fortnight later,
with the sallow, frightened-looking little girl who was
a year younger than Marion, she was so much interested
that she forgot all about the hating.  Only when
there was another girl in the house did Marion realise
how lonely it had been before.  Elise's gowns and
cloaks, too, her boxes full of finery, woke in Marion an
instinct that had been sleeping.  Nothing would serve
but the tailor must be ordered from Plymouth to make
Marion some new gowns.  Marion's halting French and
Elise's lisped English joined to make a commotion in
the house, just as Elise's maid, Victoire, conspired with
Mrs. Curnow the housekeeper to make the servants'
quarters unusually lively.  The two children, adaptable
as only the very young are, soon learned each other's
ways and became great friends.

'One thing is certain,' mused the Admiral, who, in
truth, was the one to be pitied, as he dragged his
wooden leg in solitude about the garden, 'times are
changed.  Whether for good or ill we shall see.'

After a while, the Admiral concluded that 'good or
ill' was beside the mark.  The results of the coming
of his ward could not be so easily assessed.  The
French girl brought a certain quality into the house
which was for Marion's improvement: racial touches,
the stories of her own land and coast, a new string of
interests about which Marion's thoughts began to
twine themselves.  On the other hand, there were
points in Elise's character that made the Admiral
uneasy for his daughter's sake.  The French girl seemed
to be lacking in the sense of honour which, fully
developed in Marion, was her father's pride.  She was
not above petty deceptions; there ran a strain of
secrecy through her doings which her guardian,
appearing not to notice, thoroughly condemned.  'Any one
would think she had something to hide,' he mused.

Had the Admiral been aware of the stories growing
in the village and the gossip in the servants' hall when
Victoire was absent, he would have been more uneasy
still.  But nothing came to his ears.

The household, if not greatly liking the French girl,
tolerated her.  But there was one person in whom she
inspired a profound distrust, and that was Roger
Trevannion.  Roger took the innovation with bad
grace when he came home for his first holidays and
found the Admiral's ward installed at Garth, and was
scarce better minded on the second (when he brought
his school friend, Dick Hooper, with him), thereby
making himself the object of much raillery from
Marion.  Dick Hooper, a fair-faced, fair-haired youth,
was the son of the Squire of St. Brennion.  Marion
found the company of the two boys agreeably diverting
after the quieter life she had been leading with Elise.
Her old headlong rides were resumed in their company,
Elise on these occasions absenting herself, to the
undisguised relief of two of the party.  Bows and arrows
came out once more, and Roger forgave Marion for
beating him by a yard because Hooper was watching;
and Roger's pride in Marion was unbounded.

As time went on, the Admiral could deceive himself
no longer.  He was disappointed in the daughter of
his friend.  Many times he considered whether it would
not be wise to separate the two girls for a time, sending
one or the other on a round of visits among his kinsfolk.
Then he saw how untouched Marion was, how proof
her nature was against any contact, what a pleasant
intercourse seemed to obtain between the two, and he
put the matter from him.

So months drifted into years.  Marion grew up a tall,
supple girl, but without the promise of her mother's
perfect beauty.  'Her'll never be so lovely as my
lady,' said the village.  'Wait,' said the mistress of the
Manor.  'Hair gold to russet.  Her mother's poise of
head and her mother's neck and throat.  A skin like
curds.  Her father's grey eyes and the Penrock look.
Wait.'

Not until the girl was nearly seventeen did the
Admiral suddenly wake up to realise that his 'little
maid' was dangerously near womanhood.  Also, he
could not hide from himself the fact that Elise, now
the heiress of a considerable estate in France (governed
by Delauret's attorney) could not for ever stay hidden
in a Cornish village.  Hazy ideas of the future began to
float about his mind, of his duty to these two young
ladies in his care.  But with Marion's seventeenth
birthday came the landing of Monmouth at Lyme.
The Admiral ceased to be a father and became a
loyalist magistrate.

With the spring of the following year, however,
Mistress Keziah Penrock came down with her coach
and servants from Bath, and before she left, did more
than find holes in the guest chamber hangings.  Time,
and the lady's curiosity about her niece, had healed the
breach between brother and sister.  Thus, for the first
time for twelve years, Mistress Keziah visited the home
of her childhood.  In Marion she scarcely recognised
the little one she had seen before; but during her stay
the shrewd eyes had glimpses of depths of resolution
and hardihood under the girl's gentle demeanour that
made the old woman grave.  'She'll go her own way,'
she mused.  'And whether 'tis a bid for sorrow or
happiness 'twill be just the same.  Her mother's
given her that sweetness, but she's a Penrock.'

One night when 'the child,' as the Admiral persisted
in calling his daughter, was abed, Mistress Keziah
hazarded to her brother a plan she had conceived
concerning her niece's future.  A slight disappointment
had preceded the making of this plan.  She had hoped
Marion would be affectionately inclined towards her
and consent to coming to Exeter awhile.  But the
lady, not realising in time that Marion was no longer a
child—indeed being the age when most girls in that
period were either married or embroidering their
wedding clothes—had weighed a little too heavily on
her authority.  She had said, 'Do this, my child,' where
it had been wiser to say 'Will you, my dear?'  She
was keen-sighted enough to see that the girl would not
come to her for her pleasure, and being sincerely
attached to her, decided to try other means of wresting
her from that beleaguered garrison which she was
pleased to consider Garth had become.  Deciding the
moment was good, she opened fire on the Admiral.

'Let Marion go up to Constance a spell, or get
Constance to come here.  A beautiful girl like that
should not be married off-hand to a country squire.'

'Married!' said the Admiral, aghast.  'Who's
talking of marriage, pray?  Not the child herself?'

'Marion has never even thought of it,' said the lady
quietly.  'That is the way you have brought her up.'

'All the better,' replied the Admiral with a look of
content.  Then the heavy brows drew down at an
unaccustomed idea.  'Beautiful?  Marion beautiful?
Nonsense!'

'It were just as well Marion did not hear you say so,
or the men fishing in the Channel for that matter,' icily
remarked the lady.

The thought was new to the Admiral, who had long
ago settled his mind to the fact that however adorable
his child might be, beauty was not her lot.

'Her chin is a trifle long,' mused the lady, 'her nose
a trifle short.  But somehow each makes the other
right.  'Tis a straight little nose.  She has no colouring,
it is true, and her hair is rather spoiled, bleached
in parts, through exposure to the sun.  But she has
the Penrock eyes and air.'  The lady drew herself up.
She had been a noted beauty in her youth.

The Admiral pish'd and pshaw'd at regular intervals
during his sister's recital.  'Why, even Elise says——'
he began gravely, watching her.

'Elise!' cries Mistress Keziah, fanning herself with
great energy.  'I pray you, brother, do not mention
that young person to me just now.  I have more to
say about her anon.  And now, sir,' rising and dropping
a state curtsey, 'I will bid you good night.'

And so the old lady swept off to her room.

Between Mistress Keziah and Elise there had been
war from the beginning, and only Marion's tact had
saved an open breach before her aunt's visit came to
an end.  The Admiral, watching the sparring of his
sister and his ward, and noting how shrewdly the young
girl delivered her blows, had been greatly entertained
and amused.  But the night before she left, Mistress
Keziah was closeted a long time with her brother, and
when she sought her own chamber the man's chuckles
had ceased.

For a long time he sat smoking over the dying logs.
Then as he rose and knocked out his pipe, he looked at
the portrait of his wife, hanging above the mantelshelf.

'If thou hadst not gone, sweetheart,' he said, the
grim old face sorrowful, 'all this had been changed
long ago.'





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A LETTER FROM KENSINGTON`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III


.. class:: center medium bold

   A LETTER FROM KENSINGTON

.. vspace:: 2

When Marion told, at supper, the story of Jack
Poole's arrest, the Admiral had no pity whatever
to show.  If there was one failing about which
he was merciless, it was a sympathy with the rebel
cause.  The truth might be, as Marion guessed, that
his heart was sore for Poole's folly in joining
Monmouth's standard, for Jack and Bob Tregarthen had
more nearly touched the inner circle of the life at Garth
than any other of the villagers; but he gave no sign of it.

'Poole has made his bed, and he must lie on it,' he
said, slicing at the collared head.  'And all the more
pity for his mother.'

'And Charity Borlase,' softly put in Marion.  'Poor
girl!'

'He not only made his bed,' remarked Elise, 'but
he turned it when he escaped from Bodmin gaol.  'Tis
bad enough to make a bed, but to turn it is sheer folly.
Defying fate, I say.'

The lack of sympathy in the girl's tone nettled
Marion.  Indeed, the words were more than
unsympathetic; behind them seemed to lie a touch of
hardness, of calculated malice, as if on the whole
Elise was pleased at the fisher-lad's detention.

Marion's grey eyes looked hard at her across the
table.  Something had lately seemed to emerge like a
cloud that blurred her old regard for Elise, an instinct,
hitherto sleeping, rising to respond to her aunt's
criticism of her.  And Marion was quite unaware that
the sharp-eyed French girl was conscious of a subtle
change in the attitude of her friend.

More than once Elise had heartily wished Mistress
Penrock had never darkened the doors of her
guardian's house.  She had had overmuch of Aunt
Keziah, more than Marion knew.  Elise was genuinely
fond of Marion.  She had never felt more attached
to her than at the present moment, in the relief of
the elder lady's departure; but the demon lurking in
her heart nevertheless singled out Marion as a point
of attack; and Elise knew better than any one else just
where to strike.  Here was a chance of paying back
on the niece the snubs she had received from the aunt.

In the short silence that fell after Elise's remarks,
Marion had a sudden vision of the look her aunt would
have cast on the speaker.  How nearly her own expression
resembled that of the old lady at the time Marion
did not know, but Elise saw it and her mouth tightened.
The Admiral, with his sister's warnings fresh in his
mind, glanced at his ward sitting there in her elaborate
gown that contrasted so much with Marion's.  (For
though Marion had taken a keen interest in her gowns
since the French girl's arrival, she had a naturally
simple and rather austere taste.)  The Admiral considered
the girl afresh.  It was not that Elise's skin
was unpleasantly sallow, or her features too sharp; but
there was something in the expression of the face that
made it seem so.  As Mistress Keziah had said to her
brother when he spoke of the 'poor girl's' looks, 'Tut,
tut, brother, where are those sharp eyes of yours?
'Tis not her face.  Her face is well enough for a
Frenchwoman.  All Frenchwomen are yellow.  What's wrong
with Elise's face is Elise.'

Though neither knew it, the same thought was
passing through the mind of father and daughter.

'It was a very great pity that Jack did not get aboard
the *Fair Return* sooner,' Marion went quietly on.
'She's bound for Virginia, I think, and Jack would
have been well out of the way.'

'So you are on his side, as well as Roger?'

Marion started and looked again, harder than ever, at
Elise.  The French girl's face was set, and a malicious
gleam shot from her eyes.  The Admiral gave a glance
over his shoulder, but the servant was gone to the
buttery for more ale.

'I said not Roger was on his side,' said Marion, in
her usual even tones.

Elise, angrier than ever in the face of Marion's calm,
threw all discretion to the winds.

'But he would have tried to save him had you not
stopped him.'

Here the Admiral turned his eagle look full on Elise.
'Not a word before the servants,' he said sternly.

The man came in as he spoke, and filling his master's
tankard took his place behind his chair.  A dark flush
mounted to Elise's face, but she said no more.  Presently
Peter placed the pudding and custards and went out.

'Was there any one else with you when you saw
Poole's arrest?' suddenly asked the Admiral of his
ward.  He had been thinking a little while Marion, in
her tranquil way, showing no sign of uneasiness, had
gone on talking of ordinary affairs.

Elise, taken off her guard by an unexpected question,
stammered slightly.  'I, sir?  I never said...'  Then
faced by her guardian's penetrating eye.  'No, sir.'

The Admiral 'humphed' and turned to the pudding.
Marion was silent.  Then after a pause, in ominously
quiet tones he spoke again.  'Tell us once more exactly
what passed, Marion.'

The colour came and went in Marion's face as she
obeyed.  'It was not that Roger was on anybody's
side, sir,' she said at the finish.  'But Roger always
had a great kindness for Jack, as I truly have, as we
all have, and he was thinking of the boy, not the party.'

'Of course, of course,' came the Admiral's deep voice
in hearty assent.  'Roger Trevannion cares neither for
Rebel nor Loyalist, Catholic nor Protestant.  All he
cares for is to be a sailor.'

Her father's words at once dispelled Marion's lurking
fears concerning his attitude to Roger, and her face
relaxed a little.  Then looking up at Elise she saw a
peculiar expression in her eyes, and a dim sense of
foreboding assailed her.

There was silence for a few minutes.  The man at
the head of the table was wearing a look his fellows
on the bench knew well.  His eyes grew round and
hard, as if he had borrowed blue granite marbles for the
occasion.  Marion, fearing a storm, cast about for
some excuse to leave the table.  While she was
pondering, her father spoke.

'What I cannot understand, Elise,' he said, obviously
trying to soften his voice, 'is how your father's daughter
comes to have such ways.  He was never crooked.  He
could not be.  You know full well, as well as I, the
truth of what I have just said concerning the direction
of Roger's interests.  You are shrewd enough.'

The ugly colour flushed the girl's sallow face again,
but she said no word.

The Admiral, staunch loyalist as he was known to
be, lowered his voice again, glancing at the closed doors.
'From what we have seen here of the results of that
miserable rising, you also know as well as I that such
words as you spoke of Roger, overheard by the domestics,
breathed abroad and strengthened, as is the way of idle
tales, are enough to send the lad to the gallows.  Were
you one of Jeffreys' agents, well and good.  Were you
not of the family, well and good.  All's fair in war, folk
say.  But, out of idle malice to give away the life of
one's own people—Roger Trevannion is almost as my
own son—s'death, girl!' the Admiral's fist smote the
table, and his voice slipped its leash, 'how comes a de
Delauret to act thus?'

Marion sat aghast, trembling.

'Father,' she implored, distressed and embarrassed
at the outburst.  Never before had she heard the
Admiral speak thus to his ward.  But before her father
could say anything more, Elise rose from the table,
tears in her eyes.

'I am sorry to have offended you, sir,' she said.
'And if my presence is irksome——'

The man stirred uneasily in his chair.  He could
never abide the sight of women's tears.

'Tut, tut—there's no call for weeping.  Sit down.
We'll say no more about it.  Let us have some more
of that pudding, Marion.'

Elise wiped her eyes on her lace handkerchief and
pulled awkwardly at its border.

'A little more conserve, Elise,' said Marion gently.
''Tis your favourite, you know.'

The awkward moment passed.  The Admiral poured
out a little wine for the ladies, and calling 'The King!'
drained his own glass.

Presently Marion rose, and the two girls, leaving the
Admiral to finish his bottle, went into the hall, which
served as a general sitting-room.  The little drawing-room
above had never been used since my lady's death.
According to the wishes of the Admiral that apartment
had never been invaded by 'the children.'  It remained
exactly as in the last days of its mistress, with the
little card box and the sugar-plum box on the small
table by the high-backed chair, and the work frame
with its needle, now sadly rusted, where the fair
fingers of the lady of Garth had left it.  The servants
used lovingly to say that their master went to pray
there; and certainly he had been seen to come out
with a suspiciously dim look in his honest sailor's eyes.

The evening was soft and warm, full of spring airs,
and the doors and casements of the hall were set wide.
Without a word Elise settled herself in one of the broad
mullioned window seats and took up the embroidery of
a petticoat she had in hand.  Her mouth was tightly
set, her eyes over bright.  Marion, her thoughts all
criss-cross in her head, like Elise's fancy stitches, sat
down at the spinet.  She found a relief in drawing out
the tinkling airs, and oddly to her as she sat came a dim
memory of her mother in a rose-coloured gown sitting
on that same stool, playing, when her little daughter,
her 'sweet baby,' was taken in to kiss her good night.
A wave of loneliness surged over her, and finding her
fingers, turned her tunes into sad ones.  For the first
time she realised that her aunt's presence, while
appearing in the nature of a trial, had been a support whose
need she had only just begun to realise.  She suddenly
felt very young, very inexperienced, very forlorn.
There was an indefinable change coming over the house,
as shapeless as the first wisps that fore-ran the grey sea
fogs of the coast.  The sad tinkling airs went on and
presently drew the Admiral from his bottle.

'Mawfy, Mawfy,' says he, pulling aside the curtain
that hung over the dining-room door, 'if you go on much
longer I'll be calling to be measured for my shroud.'

Marion smiled and turned into a livelier key but
before she had played many bars a door opened to
admit Peter bearing a salver.

'A letter, sir,' he said.  'Zacchary found un waiting
down to the coaching house to Lostwithiel, sir.'

The Admiral gave a glance at the superscription,
then broke the seals.

'Our fair Constance, if I mistake not.  Let us see
what she writes.'

In a few minutes he laid the letter down with a broad
smile.

'None of the Penrocks can write,' he observed, 'and
Connie was ever the worst.  Her brother has somewhat
amended himself since he became his daughter's fellow
pupil, but Constance has not had that advantage.
Still, the letter has the great virtue of brevity.  Read
it, Mawfy.'

.. vspace:: 2

'Deere brother,' wrote the lady, 'the cumming of your
letter was a grate occation of rejoysing for me, I nott
having scene your writing this menny years.  I am
greaved to deny your wish to vissit Garth, but I doe
dessire that my littel neace Marion should comme and
stay at my house for a space.  It will give me grate joy
and somme to her I doupt not.  I will promisse shee is
dressed,—Your trewly loving sister,

.. vspace:: 1

CONSTANCE FAIRFAX.'

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

KENSINGTON, *this 29th of March*.
For my deere brother, thes.

.. vspace:: 2

'Oh,' said Elise, as Marion laid down the letter.
'How delightful for you, Marion!  London!  Balls,
the play, the gardens, music.  Even, I suppose,' she
wistfully added, 'the Court.'

Elise seemed certainly to have recovered from her
chagrin, and Marion's heart warmed to her for the
unselfishness of her words.  The Admiral, standing before
the chimney, his favourite place both summer and
winter, looked curiously at the French girl and then at
his daughter.

'Well, Mawfy, now I suppose you be all of a bustle
to forsake your old father and this deadly dull place?'

Marion instantly came and clasped her hands round
her father's arm.  True to her character, she had made
no great sign of the delight the letter had given her.

'Do you want me to go or not, Father?'

'What I do mightily like,' chuckled the Admiral, 'is
what Constance says about your dress.  Doubtless we
are half-clothed savages, here at Garth.  Yes, my dear,
I think you should go.  Go and learn to drop a grand
curtsey and hold a fan with a languid air and take on
that look of boredom your Aunt Keziah has to such
perfection.  Never again cheat Zacchary of his saddling
to ride Molly barebacked; never again come flying
across the garden to leap at your father's neck.'

'Father!'  An arm stole up towards the said neck.
'I won't ever leave you if you talk so.  All the same,
I think perhaps I ought to learn some of these
things.'

'But certainly she should go!' cried Elise from her
window seat.  'Such an excellent opportunity of
becoming a lady.'

'Faith!  I never thought of that,' drily put in the
Admiral.  Elise bit her lip.

At that moment the door opened and Victoire, the
French girl's one-time nurse and present maid, came
with the glass of milk she considered it the nightly duty
of her charge to take.

'Only think, Victoire,' cried Elise, 'here is an
invitation from the Lady Constance for Mistress Marion
to go to Court!'

'To Kensington,' laughed Marion.  'How your
thoughts do run on Courts, Elise!'

Victoire's black eyes snapped at the speaker.  She
was a dark-skinned, vivacious woman, bearing the look
of the French peasant without the heavy features that
mark that class.  Her devotion to her *enfant* was of an
absorbing nature, and came nearer that of confidante
than waiting-woman.  Marion she treated with a servile
deference that was far from the honest humility of the
Cornish serving folk.

If Marion had probed her thoughts she would have
known that she thoroughly disliked Victoire.  But
Marion had accepted Elise for her friend in her
childhood's days, and (until her aunt had somewhat
unsettled her mind) had remained loyal in spite of the
drawbacks of the French girl's temperament and character,
and for her sake had tolerated Victoire.  Frankly,
Elise had puzzled her, but Victoire had puzzled her a
hundred times more.  She refused to discuss her with
her own thoughts.  And of course Victoire, being a
shrewd woman, was aware of the feeling that lay behind
Marion's manner towards her.  As a result, she became
increasingly servile, constantly trying to remind Marion
that this person in her household was the poorest of
French servants, and that Marion was mistress and
heiress of a great house and name.

'But, Madame, how truly excellent!' she cried.
'Madame will certainly go?'

'Yes, I think I shall go,' said Marion quietly.

As the Admiral's curious glance shot towards Elise,
he caught a look that passed between his ward and her
maid.  As the latter left the room the Admiral stepped
out on to the terrace.

'How delightful for you, Marion,' said Elise again,
as the old man's stumping tread sounded on the stones.

Marion was staring absently out of the window.
After Elise's words had died away she became aware of
them echoing in her brain, all blurred and mixed up
with the magic sound: London.  Waking from her
day-dream Marion spoke, her fingers on a straying
branch that climbed up the woodwork of the casement.
'It is now a long time since you yourself were in
London.  You have never said much about it.  Did
you see any of the gay sights while you were waiting
for my father to come and fetch you?'

The Admiral's tread sounded coming nearer.  There
was no reply from the girl in the other window seat.
Marion was aware of a slight movement, and then a
peculiar stillness, as if her companion was forcibly
restraining further motion.  Marion glanced over her
shoulder and then swung round.  On Elise's face was a
strange hunted look which gave way to a sorrowfulness
that sat strangely on her girlish features.  Startled
and puzzled, Marion was groping for the right word to
say, when the Admiral's figure darkened the window.
At the same moment Elise dropped her scissors; and
when she was settled in her seat again her face wore its
usual expression.  The thought crossed Marion's mind
that the look had been caused by a sudden homesickness
and memory of distant days—France; of her dying
father, perhaps.  Again her heart softened to the girl.

'What did we do?' said Elise, biting her thread.  'Oh,
we did not do much.'

'Come, Marion,' called the Admiral, 'are you so
wrapped up in your dreams you have forgotten me
already?'

Marion slipped out.  It was the nightly habit of the
two to wander in the garden after supper.  She found
her father revolving plans for her immediate departure,
and, her thoughts leaping forward to meet the future,
the consideration of Elise's affairs left her mind.

For close on an hour the two paced to and fro, and
then, finding that Elise had retired, Marion went to her
own room.  Her sad mood of the earlier part of the
evening had disappeared, her apprehensions flown.
A bright vista shone before her wherein no mist of doubt
was suffered to live.  She found the housekeeper, who
had combined her own duties with those of waiting-woman,
standing by the dressing-table, ready to brush
her hair.

'Curnow,' she said as she closed the door, 'you will
never guess what has happened.  Just try.'

Meanwhile down in the garden the Admiral was
solemnly stumping the length of the terrace.  The
light went softly out of the sky and gleamed on the
face of the Channel far below.  The scent of the furze,
in full bloom, came up from the headland, and over the
trees behind the house a slip of a new moon showed.

The serenity of the evening was lost on the old sailor.
He was musing on two problems, puffing at his pipe.

What had Elise been doing alone down at Polrennan,
on the other side of the water, to-day?  That was the
only spot whence Poole's cottage, hidden by the winding
valley from the sight of Garth, could be seen.  And why
were she and Victoire so anxious to get rid of Marion?

The night had fully come, and the house was in
darkness before the Admiral turned indoors.





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.. _`ROGER TREVANNION`:

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   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium bold

   ROGER TREVANNION

.. vspace:: 2

There is something of peculiar brightness in the
dawn of the day following an evening of good
news.  Old folk and young alike confess to the drowsy
joy of that hour, and when the person in question is a
girl of seventeen, who has never even crossed the
county border, and is now bound for London and
moreover lives in an age when to travel thither from
Cornwall is as great an adventure as a journey to the
East Indies would be some half dozen generations later,
then truly there is an unearthly radiance in that first
morrow's dawn.

Marion turned lazily on her pillow, dimly aware that
something unusual had happened.  For a few seconds
she lay inert, then heaved a great sigh of content.
She remembered.  She threw her arms out on the
coverlet and smiled.  Springing out of bed, she drew
back the window curtains and opened the lattice.

A short time later a figure in a white cotton gown,
with blue ribbons in her hair, stole lightly downstairs.

It was Marion's loved duty to make the toast for her
father's morning tankard.  A confused sound of voices
came from the kitchen as she crossed the hall, and
ceased suddenly as she opened the kitchen door.  Two
of the serving girls and a milking maid were there; it
was easy for Marion to see from their faces that she had
been the subject of their chatter.

'Marnin', Mistress Marion!' came in chorus.  The
girls stood and stared in a stupid sort of way, their great
rosy hands wedged on their hips, sleeves and petticoats
tucked up for work.

'Us 'as just heard, Mistress Marion, as you be
a-gooin' away to London,' said one of them, after a
pause.  They stared afresh.

'Us ain't niver zeen afore a lady as wor a-gooin' to
London, Mistress,' respectfully remarked the milking
maid.

A ripple of laughter ran over Marion's face as she
stood, her back to the girls, cutting a piece of bread at
the trencher.  Evidently she was to be a nine days'
wonder.  For that matter, she had the promise of being
a nine days' wonder to herself.  'Is it I?' ran her
thoughts.  'Is it really I?'  And if the domestics
stared now, what would they do when she came back
with new gowns and laces, and her hair dressed in a
new way; and, she hoped, that indefinable something
in her manner that had made them gape at Mistress
Keziah, and peep out of doorways at her, their fingers
on their lips?

Until her going was decided on, she did not know how
much her aunt's talk had awakened a desire to see the
world of men and women.  Now she was going to see it,
as Elise had said—plays, music, the Court.  She smiled
as she trimmed her piece of bread.  Then the voice of
one of the wenches roused her to a forgotten sense of
duty.

'A bain't niver——'

'Zora,' said Marion, swinging round, 'it is past five
o'clock.  I can hear Spotty now calling to be milked.
You must remember that the cows don't know I'm
going to London.'

'Ees fay, so un do sure, Mistress Marion.  A told
Spotty meself.  First thing a did, Mistress.  I says to
she, I says: "Do ee know Mistress Marion be a-goin'
to London?"  And her kind of said: "'Er bain't, now,
sure!" her did.  I allus tells Spotty.  A told un when
Simon Jibber come a-court——'

'Zora, go at once to your work!  Millie and Sue, if
you haven't anything to do, I must inquire of
Mrs. Curnow of your duties.'

There were no hearers left for the end of Marion's
sentence, and it was fortunate for them, for with her
last words in came the housekeeper from the dairy,
carrying a great bowl of clotted cream.

Her father's toast made, her own breakfast of bread
and milk partaken of, Marion set herself to the little
duties of the day.  Elise, she learned from the
housekeeper, was in the throes of one of her periodic
headaches, concerning which, it must be confessed, our fair
Marion was rather unsympathetic.  The young mistress
of Garth had never known what it was to be ailing.
For all her delicate cheeks, she was as healthy and
robust as Zora herself.  She got slightly impatient about
Elise's migraine, and when the sufferer emerged from
her retirement, full of the petulance that generally
succeeded her attacks, Marion, in her mental poise of
perfect health, did not find it easy to make allowances.
Indeed, the only quarrels that rose between them, the
only swift, straight-out blows Marion had ever been
known to give, seemed to be reserved for these occasions.

Marion went dutifully to her friend's room, and talked
with her a few minutes, feeling as usual her impatience
arise at Elise's martyr-like tones.  Presently, saying
she must confer with the housekeeper about the dinner,
she went below again.

Dinner was at twelve o'clock, as was the custom of
the day, and supper came at five or six.  At nine o'clock
the household was abed, for it was considered a shameful
thing not to be up with the sun.  These two meals
being the sole fare for the day, were of a generous
order, and Marion thought it nothing unusual when
the housekeeper told off on her fingers the items for
dinner: a dish of prawns, a marrow-bone pie (and
the good things that went into that pie!), a pair of fat
fowls, a fore-quarter of lamb, and a sirloin of beef;
a spiced pudding with brandy sauce, a gooseberry pie,
and some little tarts made with conserve, that Victoire
had introduced to the household.

Having satisfied herself that the cooking was in a
satisfactory way, Marion went into the still-room, to
see to the straining of her gooseberry wine.  About ten
o'clock she mounted to her own chamber and shut the
door.  A serious business was now afoot.  The early
joy of the morning had subsided to an under-current of
secret pleasure, but even that bade fair to be destroyed
when she turned out the contents of her clothes chest.
Her going had been settled by the Admiral for Thursday.
To-day was Tuesday.  There was no time even for
Victoire's skilful fingers—and Victoire was better than
most sempstresses or tailors—to make her another
gown.  Marion turned over the laces that had been her
mother's, the ribbons that were her sole ornament.
Her best embroidered bodice she looked at with a
dissatisfied air, and then sought her father, who was
casting up accounts at his desk.

'Father,' she said somewhat ruefully, 'I had no idea
what a great many things I haven't got.  I don't know
what Aunt Constance will think of such a niece.'

The Admiral considered his daughter at length.
''Tis certainly a problem, but I should not mind laying
long odds Aunt Constance will find her niece fair to
middling.  For the rest, her father is taking her, and
he has a purse heavy enow to stand a new gown, I trow.
Now take your hat and come across to the far pasture
with me.  I hear Sukey's got a fine calf.'

Dinner time passed, and still Elise did not leave her
chamber.  Marion went again to her door, and finding
she was asleep sought her own room.  She seated
herself at her chamber window, a piece of lace and a
mending needle in her hand.

It had been an eventful week, a week unequalled in
her simple life; it had opened with the bustle of her
Aunt Keziah's departure; a prodigious bustle that,
for the lady had elected to travel in state, with six
horses to her coach, a couple of out-riders and her page
on the step.  Marion and Zacchary had ridden on
either side the chariot as far as Lostwithiel, and Marion
felt she would always have an affectionate memory of
the fine old head thrust from the coach as she had
turned her chestnut homeward.  Coming back, the
house had seemed for the first time somewhat
lacking.  Wearisome as her demands on her niece's
liberty had been, the old lady had nevertheless
brought an added interest to the girl's quiet life,
and, as she had intended, successfully sown the seeds
of unrest.

The next day Marion had met Roger on the headland,
and later saved him from the folly of championing Jack
Poole.  Then had come the letter, the dazzling,
bewildering prospect of her aunt's house in far-away
London opening inviting doors to her.  How Roger had
scoffed at the idea!  Marion smiled and sighed in the
same breath.  She felt great uneasiness at the thought
of leaving Roger, so headstrong and foolish, to act as
he chose, to mix himself up with all the rebel factions
of the county if the fancy pleased him.

She stitched away at her lace, a look of unusual
gravity on her face.  Her thoughts had now wandered
to Elise; and in spite of the kindly feelings Elise's later
behaviour had evoked in her, she could not dispel the
sense of foreboding her words at supper had aroused.
Nor could she quite forgive her.  Roger had been the
playmate and sole companion of her childhood for many
years before Elise came to Garth.  The bond of the
boy-and-girl intimacy was of a far stronger nature than
the tie of friendship between herself and Elise.  In
fact, if Roger had not gone away to school and left her
sorrowing and lonely, it is probable that the friendship
between herself and the French girl would never have
ripened at all.

Memories of her childhood days with Roger came up
from the early years; the thought of his unswerving
loyalty, when she had done things he did not like and
he had taken the blame himself; of the boats they had
builded together and sailed on the duck-pond; of the
hours he had sat by her in the window seat, when she
was learning her stitches, and talked and told her
stories—always of the sea; of the battles they had had
concerning the riding of the colts—'You see, Mawfy,'—she
could see him now, a clumsy, thick-set figure of a
boy, his sturdy legs planted apart—'you haven't got a
brother except me, and your father's no good at riding
now, poor old man, so I've got to look after you.  And
I shan't let you ride Starlight till I've tried him better.
If he's going to throw somebody—and he looks like
it—I'd rather he threw me than you.  I know just how
to fall on a place where it doesn't hurt.  And you
don't.  It's no good saying you do, or anything of that
sort.  I just shan't let you ride Starlight.'

Then, when she had argued and sulked: 'You look
much nicer when you're smiling, Mawfy.  You've got
such a funny face.'

'My hair lies down, any way!' was her unfailing
retort on personal questions, 'and I don't look like a
heathen black-a-moor.'

Marion laid down her needle, with tears not far from
the smile in her eyes as she remembered.  In Roger's
black thatch of hair there had always been a lock
somewhere about the crown stiff as a broom handle, which
defied all efforts at persuasion on the fond mother's part.
One day Marion had taken a piece of dough from
Curnow's kneading-pan, and plastered it in a thick
cake over the unruly patch.  The dough had hardened
and refused to be removed, and Roger had gone about
many days wearing this tonsure.  In the end (the day
being Saturday, and the question of church arising)
Marion had worked at the stiff cake and brought it off,
plentifully set with hairs, at the sight of which her
own tears had dropped.

'Never mind, Mawfy,' Roger had said, between his
yells, 'I don't really mind.  And perhaps you'll be
pretty some day.  But I don't care if all my hair
stands up.  I knew a sailor who wore all his hair
standing up.  Harder than mine.'

'Oh, Roger, Roger!' said Marion softly, her needle
suspended as she stared out over the garden.  'What
a dear child you were!'

Then, uncomfortable fact, Roger had grown up.
Each time he had come back from Blundell's he had
been different: rougher, noisier, not knowing what to
do with his strength that was coming on him, given to
saying and doing awkward things; with a loudly
voiced scorn for girls (in Elise's presence) that
disappeared when the two were together; for Marion
was Marion, and, like his mother (and no other) set
apart in his boyish thoughts.

And all through his growing youth, toughening every
year just as an ivy stem toughens and becomes a tree
trunk, ran that one desire to be a sailor.  Thwarted,
it had merely bent another way, and grown stouter for
the opposition.  That the thwarting was not good for
the boy, Marion knew instinctively, as her father knew
from experience, and failed not to say so to
Mrs. Trevannion.  'You're wrong, Ma'am,' he had said, striking
the stones of the Manor porch with his stick.  'Roger's
got a sailor's blood, and he'll go to sea.  If you won't
let him go, he'll run away.'

'No,' said the lady quietly, 'he won't do that.  He
has promised.'

The old Salt Eagle glared under his pent-house brows.
'Women are queer folk.  To make a lad promise that,
and continually bid him to wait, knowing all the time
you have not the slightest intention of ever letting him
go!  You will have only yourself to thank if he flings
himself hot-headed, in desperation, into some political
bother.  We live in sorry times, and the country's
seething underneath like one of yonder Dartmoor bogs
beneath its cap of green slime.  And a boy who is
discontented is easily drawn into trouble.  And now I'll
bid you good day, Ma'am.'

And so the old sailor had stumped off, with sorrow in
his heart under his rage.  He had never had a son, but
had fate been kinder to him, he would have been proud
of a boy like Roger Trevannion.

Her father's fears were Marion's also, and in the light
of experience had been amply justified.  That 'miserable
rising,' as the Admiral described the Monmouth
Rebellion, had stirred the green smooth surface of the
bog of unrest, and the black depths still bubbled.  The
Lord Chief-Justice Jeffreys had come out to the West
to hold his 'Bloody Assize,' the punishment meted out
by Kirke's Lambs after the battle of Sedgemoor not
being deemed sufficient.  Jeffreys, doing his work of
extermination of the rebels, with one ear listening to
the desires of his own foul heart, and the other bent on
distant Whitehall, whence James II. smiled approval
and murmured encouragement, saw to it that his work
was well done.  His spies were everywhere, from the
White Horse of the Danes in the Mendips to the fishing
coves of Land's End.  And the net he cast in this way
was of the finest mesh.  Cornwall was mainly Protestant,
and it was more on the grounds of dislike for a
monarch who insisted on the observance of the Catholic
religion, than allegiance to the youth who led the
Protestant rebellion against him, that some of their
numbers flocked to Monmouth's standard.  The
Westerners had had ample cause to rue the day before
ever Judge Jeffreys set out on his tour of death.  The
rebellion had failed, their young lads dying with it
in the marshes of Sedgemoor; and Monmouth, their
hero and hope, had fled for a coward, and earned the
reward of his deeds.  And now their lusty cries of:
'God bless the Protestant Duke!' had given way to
the silence of unreasoning fear.  The country folk had
not time to dry their eyes for their sons who would
never return, before they were opened wide in horror
at this new danger for those who were left.  The danger
menaced (and touched) high and low alike.  Men
talking in taverns or at the cross roads on the events of
the rising, talking, as they thought, with friends, were
haled up the next day and hanged, for the love they
bore to Monmouth.  It was not necessary even, in
some cases, that they should speak the word that
showed they were against the Catholic king; a look
sufficed; they hanged just the same.  Here and there
a man who was suspected was found rich enough to
pay the Lord Chief-Justice the price of his life.  But
not many were so fortuned; and before the assize in
the West was over, men had learned to distrust their
lifelong friends, and to be afraid, going home at
night, of their own shadows; and women stilled their
crying children with the merest whisper of Jeffreys' name.

Jeffreys had returned to London with his triumphant
tale of some hundreds hanged, and many more sold as
slaves to the Plantations, and for such loyal service to
the Crown had been made the Lord High Chancellor of
England.

It had been mainly owing to the Admiral's influence
and well-known loyalist views that Garth had escaped
suspicion; escaped, that is to say, with the exception
of Jack Poole, who, working in a shipwright's yard at
Lyme when Monmouth landed, and with plenty of
enthusiasm to spare for any cause, such as smuggling
or rioting, that ran against authority, joined the lads
of Lyme, was taken (not in action) by the loyalists,
clapped into jail at Bodmin, and now, in Bodmin
again, was awaiting his trial.

Roger had taken no part at all in the rebellion, but
his sense of loyalty to his friends would always outride
his discretion, as Marion had proved.  And she might
not always be there to stay his folly.

She sighed, and was laying her work aside, when a
quick step sounded on the terrace, and there was a
ringing hail.

'Marion, are you there?  Curnow said she thought
you were above.'

Marion looked out at her casement.  Roger was
standing just below looking out at the moment on the
shrubbery where two of the stable dogs were trespassing.
The youth was, as usual, hatless, and the black head was
in reach of Marion's fingers as she leaned out.  Roger
was aware of a sudden tug near the crown of his head.

'Aie!  Aie!' he said, swinging round.  'I thought
you'd forgotten that.  It still stands up—always
will.'  The brown eyes looked up affectionately.  'Do you
remember that dough cake?'

'I had just been thinking of it, and how I cried when
the hair came out.  It certainly looks queer, Roger.
Let us hope you will begin to grow bald just there first.'

'Most probably I shall grow bald all round it, and
leave it upstanding.  Never mind.  I say, Mawfy,
I've——'

'Don't speak so loudly,' said Marion in sudden
contrition.  'I had forgotten, Elise has a headache.'

Roger made a slight grimace.  'Put on your habit,
and come for a ride,' he said softly.  ''Tis my last
chance.  I hear you are going Thursday.  And
to-morrow I must go down country about some sheep.'

'Good,' said Marion.  'I will only be five minutes.
Will you ask Zacchary to saddle the grey?'

As they rode out of the courtyard and turned their
horses towards the downs, Marion gave one of her
sudden chuckles.  'Do you remember Starlight,' she
said, 'and the fights we used to have about my riding him?'

'I remember.  He was a vicious brute.  I was always
glad I bullied you on that score.  What has made you
remember Starlight?'

'I had a thinking fit this afternoon,' said Marion,
'and all sorts of things came back to me.  Things we
did when we were children.'

'Ay,' said Roger.  'Do you remember——'  And
the two went off together on a journey of reminiscences
that lasted them, with breathless intervals when the
ground tempted a gallop, for close on an hour.  The
memory of that ride lived long with Marion; in talking
of their childhood they had become children again.

On a windy ridge some dozen miles from the house
they paused to breathe their horses.  Marion looked
across the land, all touched with tender green, to the
distant Channel.

'I wish Aunt Constance had asked me to visit her at
any time but the spring,' she said suddenly.  'And I
can't conceive how I shall endure many weeks without
the smell of the sea.'

It was the first mention of her approaching journey.
The merry, boyish look went out of Roger's face.  'I
hate the idea of your going,' he said moodily.  'Who is
going to look after you in London, and see that you
don't ride Starlight?'  A smile came and went, but
there was a lingering sadness in his eyes.

'There won't be any chance of riding, I suppose,'
said Marion.

'And I hate London, too,' added the young countryman.
'All the troubles in England are brewed first of
all in Whitehall.'  He looked hard at his companion
for a moment, and then back to the distant sea.  'How
long are you going to stay?' he asked abruptly.

'I don't know,' said Marion lightly.  'A long
time—years perhaps.'

Roger's brows drew together.  'And you have
never seen your Aunt Constance.  What is Sir John
Fairfax like?  Who is going to look after you?' he
said again.

'I don't know—Roger!'  Marion turned in her
saddle to face him.  'The point is much more: who
is going to look after *you*!'

Roger smiled.  'I do need leading strings and
a pinafore, of course.'

Marion's glance ran affectionately over the young
giant.  'But really, you know, Roger, I have been
rather unhappy about you since the other day at
Poole's cottage.  If it hadn't been for me, you'd have
been in Bodmin gaol now.'

'As well there as anywhere,' replied the youth, his
gaze out to sea.

'The nearest road to a vessel of your own lies not
through Bodmin gaol.  See, Roger, will you promise
me to—to be careful?'

The brown eyes looked steadily into the grey ones.

'Careful of what?'

'Why—not to get mixed up in some foolish affair for
which you really care nothing.'

Roger roused himself with a laugh.  'I think you
have got from the Admiral that trick of turning the
tables.  Here I was just going to ask you the same
thing.'

'*I'm* not likely to bestir myself about political
affairs, sir.'

'I hope not.  But seriously, Mawfy, I do not like the
whole affair—your going, I mean.  Your father cannot
stay long with you, and then you will be with strangers.
Will you promise to let me know if you should be in any
need?'

Marion smiled indulgently, then sobered, and looked
broodingly across the land again.  'Oh Roger!' she
cried impulsively, not thinking at all of herself, only
conscious of the little boy grown big at her side.  'I
could wish it were all over, and I were back again.  I'm
afraid for you.  Something is going to happen.  For
days I've had a foreboding.  I always know when a
storm is coming, and in the same way I know now——'

She pulled herself up.  It was not her way to talk at
random of her innermost feelings.

'Nonsense, nonsense!' said Roger briskly.  'Nothing
ever happens unless you let it.  You had a foreboding
when I went to Blundell's.  And what happened?
Nothing!  Oh yes—Elise came.'

They looked at each other in silence.  Then Roger
smiled.  'Come, Mawfy, 'tis my last half hour.'

He gathered his reins.  'I'll race you to the first
pasture.'





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`'MY LITTLE NIECE'`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium bold

   'MY LITTLE NIECE'

.. vspace:: 2

Great festivities were afoot in the house of Lady
Fairfax in Kensington.  The rooms glittered in
the light of hundreds of candles set in sconces on the
wall; torches were blazing in their iron sockets at the
outer door; beyond the garden was a boisterous
confusion of coaches and chairs, the chairmen wrangling
with the footmen and pages for a place by the gate;
and linkboys, their lights aloft, dodged to and fro,
casting gibes on their betters and showing an ability born
of long practice in evading their blows.

From time to time the doors opened, and footmen
bawled for my lady's or my lord's coach.  A certain
decorum, at these moments, marked the behaviour of
those without the gates.  Room was made for the
vehicle in question, page boys and footmen ran to their
posts, my lord or my lady left the house, entered the
coach and drove off.  And behind them, like water in
the wake of a ship, the noisy groups closed in again.

To be bidden to one of the gatherings of Lady Fairfax
was a coveted honour.  Just how Lady Fairfax came
to be the rallying point of a certain section of the Court
society, no one knew.  She was envied, feted, flattered,
caressed.  She walked into the Queen's drawing-room
as if it had been her own chamber; she would leave the
side of the most exalted personage in order to speak to
a humble acquaintance, and there would be no change
in her manner.  She scolded and smiled as she pleased,
and, such was the gift of the gods to her, with impunity.
Like the Admiral her brother, she made her own course
in the world, and next to a good friend she liked best an
honest enemy.  For the others, whose smile hid a snarl,
she had nothing but disdain.

Concerning Sir John Fairfax, a good deal of
whispering ran to and fro, mainly from Whitehall and
St. James's to Kensington.  Exactly what post he held no
one knew; that he was party to the secret diplomacy
of the Court every one suspected.  He was an old sailor,
and in the course of his voyages had contrived to gather
a vast information about the ports and defences of alien
coasts.  Moreover, in various parts of the world he had
friends whose loyalty was unquestioned.

A great many people were curious as to the nature
of the long conversations, without which few days
passed, between Sir John Fairfax and my Lord
Churchill; but the matter of their parleys was revealed
to no one, least of all to Sir John's wife.  He was a
smallish, grey, wizened man, with a singularly sweet
smile; he had a gentle voice and an unfailing courtesy;
his wife adored him, principally because he was the one
person in the world whom she could neither hector nor
coax into doing something he did not wish to do.

Lady Fairfax went from group to group in her rooms,
a gracious figure in her gown of black velvet stitched
with silver, a scarf of Malines lace across her shoulders,
her grey hair dressed high.  No one had ever succeeded
in defining her charm; she was one of those middle-aged
women who made young girls discontented with
their youth, and beautiful women dubious of the power
of their beauty.

As Lady Fairfax entered one of the card rooms, and
looked from group to group, a couple of young gallants
sprang from a window seat where they had been in close
converse.  Seeing them, their hostess beckoned with
her fan, and withdrew.

'What means this?' demanded my lady as the two,
with deep bows, stood before her.  'Why are you
leaving beauty unattended?  Do not the feet of the
dancers call you?  Fie on you, my lord!  And you,
sir!  Your father had known better.'

'It is but for Lady Fairfax to command,' replied the
nobleman with another bow and an air of mock
resignation.

'But my father, madam,' retorted the other, who
was, as a shrewd eye would see, a favourite with his
hostess, 'had doubtless greater attractions offered him.'

'Doubtless, doubtless!' smiled the lady.  'There is,
however, a story I may tell you some day.  Well now,
young man, will you find my husband for me?  Stay—what
is that noise below?'

Some commotion was arising in the hall, and Lady
Fairfax, being then at the head of the stairs, went slowly
down, her beautiful hand catching the folds of her
dress, the young men at her side.

'Say that again, thou girt fool!' a voice with a
strong West Country accent was shouting, 'and thou'lt
rue the day.'

There was the sound of a lusty smack, and a footman,
with his hand to his cheek, bellowed for his ally within.
The West Country voice rang out again, and there was
the crack of a whip.

'Be this the house of Lady Constance Fairfax or no?
And if 'tis, where's her to?'

The speaker, hatless, muddy, his neck-cloth torn,
stared about; his knotted fist and weapon menaced the
servants who had hastily approached.  A few guests
had strolled into the hall, and were looking curiously on.
The men accompanying my lady on the stair became
aware of a start, and an exclamation.  Lady Fairfax
dropped her robe and ran down.

'Zacchary,' she said, the group gathering round the
countryman falling away at her approach, 'surely 'tis
thou, Zacchary!'

The old groom's distressed face changed at the sound
of the voice he had not heard for twenty years.  He
dropped on one knee, and groped for the lady's hand.
Then rising, a look of devotion in his eyes, he surveyed
her from head to foot.

'I don't allow, Mistress Constance,' he said, scratching
his head, 'that you'm changed.  But you'm mighty
different all the same.  But'—his tone altered—''tis
the young mistress, my lady.  Her's without in
the coach yonder, and Peter on the step, and they
sons of Belial in the road bean't for letting the coach
go by.'

'What!  My little niece!'  Lady Fairfax turned
hastily to the young man at her side.  'I pray you,
Master Beckenham, see to this matter without; and
you, my lord, if you would look in the rooms above
for my husband——'

She needed not to finish her sentence.  Master
Beckenham followed Zacchary out into the square.

A coach had drawn across the road, a little distance
from the entrance.  The equipage belonged to my
Lord Fetterleigh, who was playing cards within, and
the coachman was making it quite clear that until he
chose he would not move his coach, his lord taking
precedence of the gentlemen whose vehicles were before
the gates.  As for that outlandish travelling waggon
beyond there (his cheek was still smarting from the
valiant Peter's whip), it could wait until it was chopped
up for——  The harangue was cut short.  'Move thy
horses, thou vile wretch!' thundered a voice.  'I will
acquaint thy lord of this.'

The light of the torches fell on the face of the
newcomer.  The coachman, with a qualm, gathered up his
reins, and Master Beckenham in his elegant buckled
shoes and smart attire slipped in between the hedge
and the rear of the coach, and followed Zacchary down
the road.

To the accompaniment of Zacchary's heartfelt
remarks (sounding to the Londoner like the whinny
of a horse) on the vileness of Kensington compared with
Cornwall, Beckenham made his way to the country
coach.  He felt a certain curiosity to see the 'little
niece.'  A few nights ago, visiting Lady Fairfax's box
between the acts, he had heard her telling how she had
bidden her brother's little maid to come and stay with
her a spell, that she might teach her how to set her toes
when she grew taller.  Lady Fairfax had never seen
the child, because of the disagreement between her
brother and herself about her upbringing.  Here the
curtain had risen, and my lady's complacent recital was
stopped.  Duly reporting this matter to Madam his
mother (one of Lady Fairfax's honest enemies),
Mr. Beckenham had been greatly diverted.  For that lady
and a bosom friend, counting the years on their fingers,
with side glances for the unconscious victim in the box,
had estimated the age of the 'little niece' as already
somewhere in the shadows of the late twenties.  Saying
nothing, Mr. Beckenham had bided his time, and it
pleased him to have an opportunity of satisfying
himself on the point.

The loiterers in the road had formed a sturdy group
round the vehicle he sought.  The coachman on the
box, not liking to leave his post, was circling his whip
over the heads of the nearest, and adding comments
when Peter, bodyguarding on the step, failed for
breath.  The link boys roared with delight.  Such
amusement did not often come their way.  And even
the watch, with his lantern and staff, had stopped in his
chant of 'Ten o'clock, and a fine windy night,' to listen
to the voices whose tones made him at once contemptuous
and envious.

Mr. Beckenham doubled his elbows, and calling:
'Make way there!  Make way!' in a voice of
unmistakable authority, soon succeeded in reaching the
door of the coach, Zacchary lumbering at his heels.
Honest Peter, in the act of drawing the back of his hand
across his overworked mouth, noted his approach, and
his eyes brightened.

''Ere be Zacchary and a gentleman, Mistress Marion.
'Ere a be.'

'Lead the horses to the gate,' commanded the young
gentleman.  'Hand me your whip, my man.'

With alacrity Peter tendered his weapon, and
Mr. Beckenham, thus armed, took up the position of page
on the step of the Penrock coach.  The loiterers fled
before the hissing lash.

At the gate, Mr. Beckenham opened the coach door
with a low bow, and offered his hand to the fair
occupant.  The light of the flambeaux fell on the two faces
confronting each other.  Marion's hat had fallen off,
her gleaming hair fell in disorder about her face.
Nervously she looked at the young man as she took his
proffered assistance, and murmured a word of thanks.
'Terrified out of her wits,' summed up the youth.
'How on earth comes she to be travelling without an
escort?'  And a strong indignation against some
unknown person seized him.

Meanwhile Lady Fairfax, standing within the
doorway, had been peering from time to time out into
the night.  She was again explaining to the group of
guests in the hall that her little niece was coming from
Cornwall to visit her.  Her brother was doubtless with
her in the coach, and had sent Zacchary to the door.
Her brother was, unhappily, lame.  And Zacchary,
poor man, only being accustomed to see one horse at a
time, was a little flustered.

Behind the speaker stood a small grey-haired man,
whose smile broadened into a chuckle as his wife's
'little niece' hove in sight.

When Marion stepped into the house, Lady Fairfax
for once in her life was speechless.  About a figure
almost as tall as her own a riding cloak was roughly
gathered.  The collar fell away from the throat, and
the folds of the garment were held by a slim hand to
the shoulder.  At the scene in the hall, Marion shrank
back a second, then stood still.

'My little niece!  Is it possible!'

Marion allowed herself to be embraced and drawn
into the house.  She was vaguely aware of a gentleman
with a kind smile, who patted her and called her 'my
dear'; of glittering jewels and gay dresses in the
background; of the throb of music in the rooms above; of
the silent figure of Mr. Beckenham standing at her
elbow.  Then she looked again at the face before her,
and the anger and dismay she had felt at the manner
of her arrival melted.  In her aunt's eyes she saw her
father's.  Her face relaxed, and she smiled.

'Did you not expect me then, Aunt Constance?'

'What a voice!' murmured a woman at the back of
the hall.

Lady Fairfax gathered the slight form in her arms.
'My little maid!' she crooned.  'My little maid!'  Then,
holding her at arm's length: 'But—I am
speechless!  How came you to travel so?  But stay.
First some food, and you shall tell me.'

She led the girl into a little room off the hall, and
while Sir John went himself for wine and cake she took
off the cloak and shoes, and held the fair face between
her hands.  'My little maid!' she said again.  'I had
forgotten you must have grown.  Tell me, sweet, one
word.  Is your father ill?  Why is he not here?'

'He is not hurt,' said Marion.  'He——'

'Drink this, my dear,' said a kind voice, and Marion,
looking up, saw her uncle at her side.  A feeling of
warmth and comfort stole over her.  'And I thought
I had fallen among thieves,' she faltered.

Meanwhile the men and women who had witnessed
the arrival of the 'little niece' were talking about her
in the rooms above.  As the conversation drifted on to
the girl's family, a gentleman strolled up to the group.
Underneath the languid pose of the courtier of the day,
a shrewd eye would have seen the hardened soldier.
'Did I hear you say Penrock?' he drawled.

'The same.  She's the daughter of Admiral
Penrock—the old Salt Eagle of the fifties.'

The questioner disappeared and passed downstairs,
and with the privilege of old friendship lifted the
tapestry curtain and walked into the little room.  Sir
John and Lady Fairfax sat on either side their guest
before the fire.  The girl was eating as she talked.

'Come in, Sampson!' called his host, 'and speak to
our little niece here.  Marion, my dear, here is an old
soldier who fought alongside your father before you
were born.'

Marion, whose back was towards the newcomer,
laid down her spiced cake and turned in her seat,
prepared to see a burly, weather-worn figure.  Instead,
she was aware of a slight, pale-faced man, dressed with
an elegance she had never before encountered, making
a low bow.  For a second she was startled, then gravely
held out her fingers.

'I could not wait one other minute,' said the guest,
his languid air falling away somewhat, 'before I had
done myself the honour of paying my respects to the
daughter of the bravest, loyalest gentleman it has ever
been my fortune to know.'

The tears dimmed Marion's eyes, and she could not
find a word to say, but she smiled up suddenly into the
gaunt face; and the man standing there, who had seen
two generations of beauty go by, felt a stirring in his
dry old heart.

Here my lady broke in.  'Tut, tut, Colonel!  I will
not have my niece weep, even at your praise.  But for
yonder stupid rising still brewing trouble, we should
have had my brother with us.  Marion has just told
us the story.  Go on eating your cake, my dear.  Take
a chair, Colonel.  So.  Just as the coach was leaving
Bagshot, who should come up but the King's Commissioner
with a couple of officers behind him, riding hard
for the west with urgent duty for my brother, who is
magistrate in his parts.  My niece, here, knows nothing
of the mission but that it was of such urgency, with the
Lord Chancellor's will behind it, that the Admiral
must needs take another coach and ride back to Cornwall.
The two officers escorted my niece here the rest
of the way till noon to-day, when there was but the
fields of Kensington to cross, and they were doubtless
thinking of their dinner at St. James's.  The coachman
then lost his way, the dolt! and found himself in
Chelsey.  'Tis only by good fortune my niece arrived
in safety.  But'—the lady pressed another kiss on the
girl's cheek—'here she is!  And she's going to stay a
long, long time.  Perhaps for years.'

Marion was aware of a vague echo, a vision of a youth
on horseback on a windy ridge that smelt of the sea: all
of it somewhere in another world and another life she
had lived in the long ago.  She sighed.  For a few
minutes the talk went on, the girl paying no heed.
Then Lady Fairfax, gathering her lace shawl, rose and
dropped a curtsey to Mr. Sampson.

'And now for bed,' said she.  'I will see you all anon.'





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.. _`A LADY IN WAITING`:

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   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium bold

   A LADY-IN-WAITING

.. vspace:: 2

It is said that the unexpected generally happens, and
the truth of this was borne home to Marion during
her first week in Kensington.  She had looked (not
without a thrill of delight and fear blended) for an
immediate plunge into the excitements of the capital.
Instead, she found herself, partly by accident and partly
by design, passing from hour to hour and day to day
in a state of almost complete seclusion.  The accident
that led to this state of affairs was due to Lady Fairfax's
being a favourite attendant of Her Majesty; Her
Majesty elected to find herself ailing on the Wednesday—the
day after Marion's arrival—and Lady Fairfax's
presence seemed to be the one factor that made the
Royal indisposition bearable.  Aunt Constance could
only spare rime for an embrace and a half-hour's gossip
with her niece before her coach was announced to carry
her to court.  She came home late in the day with the
news that change of air was prescribed by the royal
physician, and on Friday the Queen's household must
move to Hampton Court; and should that atmosphere
not prove beneficial, they might go yet further, to
Tunbridge or Bath.  Lady Fairfax had risked the
displeasure of her august mistress and prayed for leave
of absence, only to learn that the arrivals of 'little
nieces' from our duchy of Cornwall do not find a place
in the calendar of events at Court.  When our health
is improved (it was hinted) we may perhaps find it
agreeable to dispense somewhat with our lady-in-waiting.
Until then—as Lady Fairfax allowed herself
to say, the unfortunate aunt must 'grin and bide.'

So much for the 'accident' that led to Marion's
seclusion.  The 'design' was due to the cherished
plans her aunt had formed—vaguely before her arrival,
very actively on the night of her coming—for her niece's
success.  Lady Fairfax was delighted with her young
guest.  She was proud of this addition to her family
treasures; a veritable jewel, she fondly said.  But the
jewel must be well set before being displayed to the
public eye.  To the inquirers visiting the house in
Kensington or seeing her abroad, Lady Fairfax smilingly
said that her niece had had a trying journey, and must
have her beauty sleep—several days' beauty sleep, in
fact (during which time it was decreed that my lady's
tailor and sempstress should be hard driven).  No
word of this was hinted to Marion.  She accepted the
fact of her aunt's duties at Court as an ordinary event,
and spent her time wandering about the great house
and garden; noting the grandeur of the entertaining
rooms, the numerous liveried servants, and the ordered
stateliness of everyday life.  Her windows looked out
on Kensington Square, where she had glimpses of
carriages coming and going, of chairmen setting down
their burden at the gates, of men and women of such
dress and deportment that Marion thought they must
surely be the princes and princesses out of some fairy
tale.

Kind Sir John Fairfax was concerned for the young
lady under his roof.  She seemed to him to be moping.

'Everything is for the best, on the whole,' declared
his wife.  'I am truly grieved to leave her so much, but
that would not be a loss if you would bear her company
a little oftener.  You forget the change this life is to
the child.  What is Garth?  A wigwam in a forest.
She must needs find her feet before she can run.  And
run she shall not till she be dressed.  Romaine is
altering a gown for everyday usage,' the lady went on, 'and
then as soon as Her Majesty's *malaise* allows her to
free me, we will have a few visitors some quiet night
that I may see how she dances.  Young Beckenham
will not be sorry of the chance, and Sampson, I'll be
bound, for all his languid airs, will be glad to make a
leg again in a minuet.  Then,' Lady Fairfax smiled
demurely, 'in another week or two a ball in the honour
of the coming of my niece to Kensington.  And if you
don't like the fuss and the pother of the ball coming on,
dear lad, why, get you to Whitehall and talk secrets
with my Lord Churchill.'

'You are riding this hobby of her gowns to death!'
grumbled Sir John.  'It is bad for the girl.  She'll
think that nothing matters but fal-lals.  And she is too
much alone.  Can't Her Majesty spare you an hour
this evening to take her to a play?  Need she be
dressed for her first play?'

The lady neatly dropped a kiss on the end of her
husband's nose.  'That's for that!' she smiled.
'You have given me an idea.  Not to-night, but
Monday (Her Majesty has promised me Monday) our
little niece shall go to the play.  She shall wear her
white muslin frock and a rose in her hair; and not a
woman in the theatre but will be sick at the thought
of the pots on her dressing-table.'

Sir John looked at his wife in despair, then laughed
outright.

'Upon my word, Connie,' said he, 'you'd have made
a fine general.  You lose no chances.  You make every
hummock into a bed for a culverin.  I give it up!'

'But even you,' serenely concluded his companion,
'will agree that she cannot walk into Her Majesty's
drawing-room in a muslin frock.'

To do Lady Fairfax justice, she had no intention of
burdening Marion with fal-lals, for although in those
days women wore most elaborate robes, it was not
considered necessary to have a new one for each ball,
play, or party they attended.  Moreover fashion was
a sleepy, slow-moving dame, only rising to bestir
herself once in a decade—and not, as is her present
habit, setting a new step every year, and making her
followers miserable if they fall behind in the march.
A ball dress was a veritable 'creation,' made with
infinite pains and pride, every stitch carefully put in,
the embroideries a triumph of patience and skill (and
eyesight), as indeed was all the needlework of those
leisurely days, before machine-made imitations
undermined its value.  Dresses were worn by their owners
year after year, and very often a valued gown was
personally bequeathed to the next generation.

Lady Fairfax had carefully hidden the slight disdain
she had felt for Marion's belongings when her French
sempstress, to whom she had sent an urgent call, came
early on the second day after Marion's arrival.
Indeed Marion's eyes had watched her aunt narrowly,
and the kind-hearted woman had guessed her nervous
shrinking when Madame Romaine lifted from her trunk
the simple garment made by the Plymouth tailor.

'But, dear heart,' Lady Fairfax had allowed herself
to remark, 'where is your mother's lilac embroidered
gown?  Did not your father give it to you?'

'He never thinks of dress,' faltered Marion, feeling
that she and her father were being found blameworthy,
'and—I don't think he could bear to see even me
wearing my mother's bodices.'

Lady Fairfax's eyes softened, and a memory came
to her of the fair lady of Garth in that one winter when
she flitted across the stage of London before she 'buried
herself' in the west.

The Frenchwoman meanwhile was sniffing in the
recesses of Marion's trunk.  'I have not smelt so great
a sweetness, Mademoiselle, since I was a small little
one—so—playing in the garden of my uncle in Avignon,
a thousand years ago!'

'All my mother's things still smell sweet,' said
Marion to her aunt.  'She made her own waters, and
grew lavender and roses and all sorts of flowers specially
for them.  I cannot make them near so well.  Mistress
Trevannion says my mother was very beautiful, too.
But Father will never talk of her, except,' added
Marion disconsolately, 'to say I do not in the least
resemble her.'

The eyes of mistress and sempstress met over the
golden brown head.  Marion at the moment was busying
herself with another small trunk, and took from it
a japanned box.

'I had almost forgotten this, Aunt Constance,' she
said.  'Father gave it to me in the greatest hurry, just
when Curnow was fastening the boxes.  If I had not
known his ways, I should have thought he had been
angry.  But it was just that he did not want me to
ask any questions.'

She opened the box with a little gold key.  Inside
was a length of heavy embroidered silk, worked in
cream and gold, on a cream ground, with a straying
touch of blue and green.  Pinned to the end of the
length was a slip of paper.

'Your mother was working this for you, and talking
of when you would be grown, just before she died,' ran
the words.  'Wear it, my child.'  Nothing more.

'That was a very sweet lady,' emphatically said the
Frenchwoman as she examined the length, the other
two standing silent a space.

'It is most beautiful,' said Lady Fairfax.  Then she
glanced at the script again, and in spite of Marion's
solemn look she chuckled a little.

'"Wear it!" says my lord.  "Wear it!"  How?
Pinned on the front of your bodice?  I'll warrant my
brother is firmly of the idea he has given you a gown.
But there's something else in this trunk—another
box——'

Marion fumbled with the lid, and presently disclosed
a casket with a velvet lining.  Curled in the folds of
the velvet lay a necklace of turquoise and pearl.

Marion stood speechless.

'I shall never dare wear that!' she said at length.

Lady Fairfax, with a pleased smile, was turning the
necklace about in the light.

'Your mother's too, I remember it.  This settles
the matter,' she added to the sempstress.  'Mademoiselle's
gown shall be cream and gold, with a *soupçon* of
the blue of these turquoises.  Let it be designed'—she
went off into a string of technicalities.  'You will get
Master Bingon at once, my good Romaine, and the two
of you set to work.  I give you seven days and nights
for a month's employment.  Can you, and will you?'

Madame Romaine glanced at Marion's face.  'Solely
for *les beaux yeux* of Mademoiselle,' she briefly replied.
'I cannot, but I will.'

'Good.  And bid the little Simone come here for a
spell.  She can have the small chamber next to
Mademoiselle, and stitch at her flounces and petticoats,
and perhaps persuade Mademoiselle to wear her
new stays.'

Marion laughed.  'I give up the battle from this
moment, Aunt Constance.  I will even wear the sort
of stays you wish.  But not,' she added firmly, 'as
hard and tight as yours.'

Lady Fairfax complacently surveyed her own
beautiful figure in the long mirror on the wall.

'La, la, Mademoiselle,' put in the Frenchwoman,
'il faut souffrir pour être belle.'

'Not that kind of suffering, Madame Romaine!'
said Marion, with a touch of her father's dryness that
made her aunt smile.  'Mademoiselle de Delauret
wears hard stays, and she suffers greatly sometimes, but
I have never seen any marked improvement in her
looks.  But who is this Simone who is coming to mount
guard over me?'

Here the door opened and a page boy entered.  He
spoke to his mistress, who drew him out of earshot
of the others.

'Master Beckenham again, my lady.  Master
Beckenham's compliments, and may he have the
pleasure of waiting on your ladyship and inquiring after
the health of Mistress Penrock?'

'Did I not tell you what to say should this happen?

'I said it, my lady, and Master——'

'Go and say it again.'

The page boy made a deep obeisance and withdrew.

Lady Fairfax, smiling at her own thoughts, rejoined
her niece and the sempstress.  Meanwhile Madame
Romaine, whose delight at finding a receptive audience
was great, was telling a story about some one called
Simone, a protégée of hers whose services in her own
house Lady Fairfax had just requested.  Simone, it
appeared, had been found many years ago on a
doorstep in the city—in Crutched Friars—by the
Frenchwoman on her way home from a client's house.  The
sempstress had been minded to pass by—there are
always plenty of crying children in the gutters—but she
had heard the child babbling in her own tongue.  And
the kind-hearted woman, whose country was her dear
love, picked up the little one, and solely for the sake of
*la belle France*, carried her home.

The child, emaciated, almost starved to death, had
fallen into a fever and a severe illness from which she
had barely escaped with her life, and not altogether,
Madame Romaine sometimes feared, with her reason.
She had babbled of strange things sometimes, but the
memory of her childhood seemed to have fallen off,
with all the hair from her head, during her illness.
'She is one of my most valued needlewomen,' declared
the sempstress, 'which is why, I suppose, my lady
demands her presence here, just as if she were but a
chair to sit upon, and no good whatever to me!'

'You have others,' placidly said Lady Fairfax, busy
with her powdering box at her dressing-table.  'And I
have a certain liking for the little Simone.  But of
course, if you prefer it—I wish not to drive you
hardly—send Alice Hepworthy—but spare us her history.
Seven days and nights you have.  'Tis not wise to
waste an hour talking of people who do not matter in
the least.  Marion, my dear,' Lady Fairfax swung
round, 'take warning by Romaine, and if ever you find
yourself chattering, think of her.  She cares not what
her subject may be, so long as her tongue may wag.
You are an insufferable bore, my good Romaine, with
your Simones and your gutters.  Begone, you rogue,
and let me see your progress soon.'

With a smile and a curtsey the Frenchwoman
departed.  She counted it one of her greatest privileges
to be rated by Lady Fairfax.

Madame Romaine's little French needlewoman took
up her abode in a small chamber that opened off
Marion's, and when that young lady was not engaged
with her aunt or uncle, or the stray visitors she was
allowed to see before she was presented to London
society, she found Simone Leblanc very pleasant
company.

Simone, like Elise, had that instinct for dress which
is the birthright of all Frenchwomen and the envy
of their Anglo-Saxon sisters.  Did Marion require a
ribbon in her sunny hair, Simone knew by an unfailing
instinct just where the knot should fall, found without
a second's hesitation the one spot to place a rose.  And
when Marion, seeing herself stumble in these paths so
easily tripped by the little French feet, was minded to
voice her discontent with herself, Simone would reply
with her rare smile: 'No, no!  Mademoiselle deceives
herself.  Mademoiselle has great qualities.  As for a
little nothing like a bow or an ornament, Mademoiselle
will surely see that it is one's *métier*, the placing of bows
and ornaments.'

Marion liked the quiet, grave girl who sat so
industriously hemming the flounces for her petticoats and
otherwise filling the gaps her over-tried employer left
neglected in the programme of Mademoiselle's dresses.
Sometimes Marion would take a needle and help her,
and they talked of London, Simone offering crumbs
for Marion's hungering curiosity of the ways of this
new world.  Always when she entered the little
chamber she would see the small brown head bent over
a lapful of silk and muslins, the dainty hand stitching
away, the face, with its look of settled gravity and
absorption combined, turning at her entrance.

'If she were not so serious,' mused Marion on one or
two occasions, 'that little Simone would be a beautiful
girl.'

But beautiful or not, Simone wrought exactly the
change Lady Fairfax had desired.  Marion unconsciously
studied the little sempstress's way of wearing
her own simply made gowns: a new spectacle this, for
Elise's dresses had never been simple.  And the grave
rebuke in the dark eyes when Marion, on seating
herself, adjusted a skirt in an unbecoming way had the
effect of subduing the young lady at once.

'I don't know what is the matter with me,' confessed
Marion to her aunt.  'Simone makes me feel too large,
too clumsy.  I haven't got big feet'—she complacently
surveyed her projected slipper—'but when Simone
walks across a room I think I have.  I did not think
there was anything the matter with my arms till I
saw Simone's glance if I placed them so.  Am I very
countrified, Aunt Constance?'

'My little lamb,' said that lady with a fond embrace,
'you are finding your feet.  Never mind how big they
are.  They are very well.'

Simone had passed triumphantly the test of the
shrewd, watching eyes of Lady Fairfax, who had long
ago singled out the quiet girl as being the most deft of
the Frenchwoman's assistants.  And now, as she saw
her coming and going about her niece's affairs, she
decided that, considering her as a waiting woman,
deftness was the least of her qualities.  There was
something in the ease of the girl's movements no
matter in what company she found herself; something
in the way she entered a thronged room on some errand,
spoke to her young mistress and went out again; something
in the restraint of her speech and the subtle charm
of her low soft voice, that made Lady Fairfax
congratulate herself again and again on the waiting woman
she had found for her niece.  And it was a matter of
sincere regret in the entire household when Madame
Romaine obdurate for once, insisted on her apprentice's
return in order to help with the mass of work that was
driving the sempstress into an untimely grave.  As soon
as the load was eased somewhat, Simone might be
allowed to return; but in the meantime, excellent
needlewomen were hard to find, while waiting women
grew in every garden, so to speak.  Thus Madame
Romaine.

Simone's departure, Mrs. Martin, Lady Fairfax's
woman was obliged to find time to divide her care
between two mistresses, and visitors coming more and
more to the house, Marion's empty hours were few.

True to her promise (being graciously allowed by Her
Majesty) Lady Fairfax took her niece on the Monday
night to see the play at the theatre near Blackfriars
Bridge, Colonel Sampson being the only visitor in the
box.  When Marion had seated herself, and realised
that the box was in full view of the body of the
theatre filled with people of fashion, she shrank back
in uttermost confusion.  Her aunt, serenely surveying
the house, nodding to acquaintances and smiling at the
stiff backs of her honest enemies, was forgetful for the
moment of her niece's predicament.  But the gentleman
at the rear of the box came to her rescue.  Colonel
Sampson, slipping round her chair, leisurely placed his
elegantly garbed shoulder and elbow on the edge of the
box, and leaning down to talk to her, sheltered her
from the view of the gossiping folk in the body of the
theatre.  Marion vowed friendship for Colonel Sampson
from that moment.

Then, when the curtain rose, and her companion
returned to his own chair, Marion forgot the gay crowd,
forgot past, present, and future.  Leaning on the edge
of the box, utterly unconscious of the fact that Lady
Fairfax's 'little niece' in a white muslin dress and with
a rose in her hair, was being fully as much regarded as
the stage, she gave herself up to the pleasure of her first
play.  She did not know that her laugh rose here and
there the first in the house; she was totally unaware of
the horror in her face when the villain of the piece
unmasked his villainy.  When a duel came to be fought,
and swords gleamed out, she half turned and grasped
Sir John's sleeve, not daring to see the blades clash.
And when the curtain fell, she needed the positive
assurance of her uncle and Colonel Sampson (Lady
Fairfax being at the door of the box, smilingly and
inexorably keeping visitors without) that the men lying
there on the stage were not really dead.





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.. _`SIMONE LEBLANC`:

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   CHAPTER VII


.. class:: center medium bold

   SIMONE LEBLANC

.. vspace:: 2

Marion was silent in the carriage on her way
home from the theatre, and absent-minded at
supper.  Her aunt presently thought it wise to switch
off her thoughts into another channel.

'She will never sleep, that precious baby,' she said
in an aside to Colonel Sampson, sitting at her right hand.
'She is living the acts all over again.  I cannot blame
her.  I wept all night after my first play.'

Soon Marion's ears pricked at the sound of the word
Garth; mentally she rubbed her eyes and sat up.
Colonel Sampson was talking of her father—telling the
sort of tales Marion had so often heard when her father
and his old friends of the sea met at the friendly board,
or when he had fallen back on the parson for audience.
And as Mr. Sampson talked, it seemed to Marion that
the bored gentleman of fashion completely disappeared
and the stern, honest soldier came uppermost.

Marion listened with complacent pride to the hints
the speaker gave of her father's bravery and lovable
little deeds.

'He was ever prone to acts of generous folly,' the
Admiral's sister put in at the end of one of the stories.
'And that reminds me, my dear,' turning to her niece,
'I haven't yet heard one hundredth part of your news
from home——'

'You lead such a busy life, Aunt Constance,' put in
Marion demurely, 'I don't see how you can ever
think of little things like stories about Garth.'

'I lead a most unhappy life!' retorted the lady,
'and I hope when some one writes my memoirs he will
be careful to add the fact that I bore my trials right
sweetly.  But I was going to say—give her some more
of that jelly, John—I never had the right story of how
your foolish father came to saddle himself with the
little French girl.'

'Why,' said Marion, 'let me see now.  Elise is the
daughter of poor M. de Delauret, you know——'

Colonel Sampson leaned forward.  'Not the de
Delauret who sailed in the *Triomphe Noir* to the East?'

'The same.  I have heard my father talk of that very
ship.'

'Strange, strange!' mused the old soldier, settling
back in his chair.  'I never met the gentleman myself,
but I was acquainted with Madame de Delauret in the
old days, before she was married.'

Marion regarded the speaker with unfeigned interest.
'You knew Elise's mother!  Do tell me about her, sir.
I could never get Elise to talk about her.'

'But this is intolerable!' cried Lady Fairfax,
tapping the table with her slim, jewelled fingers.
'Here I ask for a simple story, and you and my niece
go off on a voyage of discovery together.  John, my
dear, shall we retire to my drawing-room for a dish of
tea?'

'You see, Marion,' came her uncle's quiet voice from
the head of the table, 'my lady there is accustomed to
being (or thinking she is) the person of most importance,
saving Her Majesty's presence, in any company.'

The country girl's eyes rested shyly on the lady's face.
'I'm sure no one has a greater right,' said she.

'That is a very admirable sentiment,' said Lady
Fairfax gravely.  'The prisoner is dismissed with a
reprimand.  Now you may begin your story, leaving
out the *Triomphe Noir*.'

In her simple, straightforward way Marion then told
what she knew of her father's relationship with the
Frenchman and his adoption of the orphan.

''Twas very noble of Tom to take on such a guardianship,'
mused Lady Fairfax.  'But it was also very
foolish.  Only my brother would have been so blind.'

'How so, Aunt Constance?'

'Because, my dear, from what you say Elise is something
of an heiress on her mother's side.  Is not that
so, Colonel?'

The gentleman assented.  'Madame de Delauret
was the daughter of the Sieur d'Artois.  Her father, it
is true, gave his consent to her marriage with the
"penniless Breton cadet," as they were pleased to
describe de Delauret, but her family more or less
discarded her.  Now, however, through the demise of
various other members of the family, Madame de
Delauret's child must inherit the Artois estates.'

'I still don't see how Father was blind,' persisted
Marion.

'Don't you, my dear child?  It is this way.  If Elise
is her mother's heiress to that extent, she is a person of
note, in a small way.  She should be with the ladies of
the d'Artois family.  It is to be presumed their
antagonism is now dead.  *D'ailleurs*,' added the lady drily,
'if Elise is heiress 'twill be for her to pick and choose.'

'M. de Delauret's particular wish was to keep Elise
away from French society,' replied Marion.

'But Elise cannot be hid all her life under my
brother's greatcoats!  She has, I am sure, had a right
simple, honest, healthy upbringing.  Now she should
be brought out to take her place.'

'She ought to be a very charming young lady,' mused
the Colonel.  'Of such a mother and such a father.  I
have ever heard the most noble stories of de Delauret.'

'Who is managing Elise's estates?' asked Sir John,
looking up from his walnuts.

'I know very little about that, sir.  My father's
lawyer has dealings with M. de Delauret's lawyer in
France and pays Elise her income, through Father, of
course.  But that brings to my mind—I had really
forgotten—I seem to have forgotten such a lot about
Garth since I came here,' penitently put in the young
lady.  'The very day we came away Father had a letter
from the French attorney, M. Lebrun.  He is an old
gentleman, it appears, and wishes to retire from his
duties, and is shortly to leave everything in his son's
hands.  The young M. Lebrun I know nothing about.
Neither Elise nor Victoire has ever seen him.  But I
gathered from Elise's manner she will not be sorry to
have dealings with the son,' continued Marion.  'The
old gentleman appears to affect her with a particular
dislike.  Be that as it may, old M. Lebrun is on his
way to England, to visit us before he relinquishes his
affairs.  Father said 'twas rather unwise of him, as his
health is very poor—some disease he has—I forget its
name—a learned name.'

'Well,' said Lady Fairfax, 'let us hope the learned
name will not silence M. Lebrun before he has arranged
for the young lady to be taken to Paris.'

'Father has been thinking of a change, I know.  Aunt
Keziah scolded him a little, I think.  You wouldn't
believe,' smiled Marion, 'how Aunt Keziah and Elise
hated each other.'

'I presume she was otherwise a general favourite?'  Lady
Fairfax had noted the entire absence of any
personal feeling in her niece's recital of the young
French girl's affairs.

'Well——' Marion faltered.

'You are much attached to her, I suppose.'

'I was—yes, I am,' said Marion stoutly.  ''Twas
just something she did that angered me.'  She took
refuge in a general attitude again.  'As for being a
favourite—I think—'twas so—except for Roger.  Roger
could never abide her.  Neither could Dick Hooper,
his friend from Blundell's.'

'Roger?'

Marion raised her clear eyes to her aunt's face.
'Roger Trevannion, you know, at the Manor.'

There was a brief silence.  Marion's brows were
straightened a little.  She seemed again to hear that
sarcastic voice: 'So you are on his side, as well as
Roger.'  How distant it all appeared!  She wondered
what Roger was doing—was he allowing himself to
get into any foolish scrapes?

Presently Lady Fairfax held up her finger to stop
the conversation that had arisen between the gentlemen.
'Hark, d' ye hear?'

The windows were open, and the cry of the watch
in the square was distinctly audible.

'Past ten o'clock, and a fine starlight night.'

'To your chamber at once,' she said to Marion.  'We
will talk more of this little Elise later.'

.. vspace:: 2

As the days went on, Mrs. Martin found herself unable
to cope with the double service that had been laid
upon her.  Moreover the approaching festivities planned
in Marion's honour were casting shadows before.

'I think Martin is taking leave of her senses,'
grumbled Lady Fairfax one morning.  'She brought
me my best sarcenet petticoat to wear while I showed
Hopkins how to make a new sauce.'

'Likely enough she is overworked,' remarked Sir John.

'It comes of allowing a servant to lead an idle life,'
declared the lady.  'If she has two ribbons to tie instead
of one, her face becomes that of a long stone image.'

'Her face generally resembles a good-tempered
gargoyle,' smiled Marion.

''Tis a pity for a good-tempered gargoyle to become
a long stone image,' remarked Sir John.  'Cannot you
get that little Simone to return to us?  Apart from the
question of Martin, if your fear comes true, and Her
Majesty goes to the wells at Tunbridge, Simone would
be useful in your absence.'

'Hush!' cried his wife.  'A mightily kind fate has
decreed that Her Majesty should continue to improve.'

'A mightily kind fate of that order,' drily put in Sir
John, 'doubtless has its lap full of those famous
powders of the court physician.  Don't count on the
kindness being lasting.'

'I always disliked Job's friends,' remarked Lady
Fairfax.  'Very well, we will try to get Simone back.
That is, if our baby does not object.'

'I like Simone,' said Marion heartily.  'It will be
pleasant for me.'

The same day Lady Fairfax drove to the house of
Madame Romaine, and not only silenced the
Frenchwoman's protests with gold and fair words, but
brought Simone back with her to Kensington.  Simone
did not attempt to hide the pleasure afforded her by the
prospect of her new duties.  A smile broke over her
face when she was summoned to the visitor's presence,
and learned her wishes.  As Lady Fairfax noted
the new expression of the grave features, and the
light in the dark eyes, her firmly rooted belief that
happiness is the greatest beautifier in the world threw
out several new shoots.  'She shall go on being happy,'
was her inward vow, 'Romaine or no Romaine.'

The sempstress herself saw the look on the girl's
face.  'Mademoiselle Marion is the only one of her
patrons whom Simone has consented to like,' she
remarked, when the girl had left the room to find the
necessary objects for her journey.  'She spends most
of her time in her so nice little grey shell, that small
snail of mine.'

'Tell me again where you found her,' said Lady
Fairfax.  'Sir John was asking the other day.'

The two talked together till Simone reappeared with
a modest parcel of her belongings.

Simone was more delighted to return to Kensington
and the society of Marion than either Lady Fairfax or
her mistress guessed.  Ever since the first day when
she had arrived to stitch Mademoiselle's flounces, a
pleasure in Marion's society had come on her as a
surprise: a new sensation.  Hitherto Simone had been
an incurious, detached watcher of the friendships of
others.  Now she found herself suddenly flung on to
the stage.  It had been somewhat of an upheaval,
this first attachment of hers.

Marion had no idea of the depth of affection the quiet
French girl felt for her.  Simone's was a proud and
reticent nature, and moreover she had early learned in the
school of sorrow the secret of self-restraint.  Marion
wondered sometimes at the unusual warmth of the dark
eyes that would meet her own, and she certainly felt
for Simone an ever-growing regard; but a social barrier
lay between the two, and Simone was not the one to
overstep it.

Meanwhile, as was only natural, the mental atmosphere
of her new home was creating in Marion fresh
impressions, altering her standards.  Her thoughts
began to fly out and abroad, instead of roosting
peacefully at home.  Both Colonel Sampson, who was a
constant visitor at the house, and her uncle were studious,
thoughtful men; her aunt was a very accomplished
woman; and it was a severe check to whatever
self-importance Marion had had as mistress of Garth to
find that sometimes during the whole course of a meal
no subject would be discussed on which she had any
knowledge at all.  And wherever she went in her aunt's
company, new forces were at work.

A week or two after her arrival in Kensington, she
had her first glimpse of the city of London.  Lady
Fairfax wished to visit a tailor in Eastcheap concerning
a new riding cloak for her charge.  The coach was
announced immediately after dinner, and aunt and niece
set out for the drive across the fields, by way of
Knightsbridge, to the village of Charing.

Marion's delight was unbounded.  She had already
been taken to Westminster, standing mute at her first
glimpse of the Abbey and Houses.  Another day she
and her aunt had visited Chelsey, and she had seen
the river again with its strings of barges and wherries
and passenger boats: more people on the waterway
than trod the road.  She had written a long letter to
her father about it, saying that when he came to London
the two could sail down the river, so that he might
show her London Bridge, and find the shop whence
her school books had come.

The coach made its way up the Strand through the
Temple Gate into the city.  The crowds jostling each
other and shouting; the officers of the Guards swaggering
by, ready for a brawl if a man so much as jerked
their elbows in passing; the flunkeys making way for
their lord's coach; the chairmen reviling each other;
the glimpses of men and women of the world of fashion
in the narrow footway; all this was Romance incarnate
to the simple country girl.  Then when they reached
Ludgate Hill, and the coach stopped for my lady to
make a trifling purchase, Marion, alighting after her,
stood stock still in amazement.  Each shop had its
own pictorial sign suspended by creaking chains over
the doorway.  By this device a populace for the
most part incapable of reading was able to understand
the nature of the trade pursued indoors.  Marion,
wishing to stand and read the riddle of these signs
(of which the only remnant to this day exists in the
barber's painted pole and the pawnbroker's three balls)
was laughingly drawn onward by her aunt.

'My dear,' she said, 'you will have all the apprentices
of the city rushing out upon you if you behave in
this way.'

Indeed, the prentice boys, with their cry of 'What
d'ye lack?  What d'ye lack, Gentles?  Buy, buy,
buy!' were continually in and out of the doors of their
shops, and one, spying from within Marion's face of
wonderment, was only prevented from seizing an easy
customer by the sight of Lady Fairfax's footman
towering head and shoulders above the ladies.

From the shops on Ludgate Hill Marion's eyes
turned upwards to the climbing walls and scaffolding
of the new St. Paul's rising on the ashes of the old.
And the country girl, whose love for the fields and lanes
of Cornwall, the salt of the sea, and the song of
birds in the dawn was one of the strongest forces in her
life, began to understand more of that other love—the
love of the English for the grey stone buildings of
London.  She had heard of sailors who had been bred
in the sound of Bow Bells meeting with streaming eyes
the spires of the city rising above the water when they
sailed back after an outlandish voyage and anchored in
London Pool.  Already she felt that if she visited
London again after a long lapse, she would claim it as
her own.  It was more than a city; something
mysterious and eternal.  The Great Fire had eaten its
way into the very heart of its foundations, and here
was St. Paul's rising again on the monstrous scar left
by the flames.

In a dream she sat by her aunt's side, and rode down
Eastcheap, past the little houses and shops, mostly
standing gable-end on the street.  It seemed quite
fitting that the bells of Bow should be pealing then.
In a dream she got out and stared at the new Royal
Exchange, another great building fresh born of the
Fire.  She saw Sir Thomas Gresham's monument, and
the huge grasshopper black with smoke which had
come, a portent of the spirit of the founder of the
Exchange, through all those days of devouring flames.

Then the houses of Lombard Street caught her eye,
where Italy had joined hands with England, bringing
gold and jewels for barter from a land at the height
of her wealth to the barbarian island set about with fog.

Her aunt's voice sounded in her ear.  'This is the
richest street in the land, Marion—all money lenders
and goldsmiths and wealthy merchants.'

Marion sighed.  'I think London is very wonderful,
Aunt Constance.  May we not go to the Tower now?'

'Another time, my child, another time.'

As the days went by, several of these excursions took
place, sometimes Colonel Sampson and sometimes
Simone occupying the spare seat in the coach.  Slowly
Marion was drawn into the circle of her new life.  She
no longer felt, as in the first few days of her visit, that
the present was a dream, a pageant passing her by;
the present became very actively real, and her life on
the Cornish hillside grew more and more remote.





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.. _`HAUNTED COVE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   HAUNTED COVE

.. vspace:: 2

For three days a thick sea fog had overhung the
coast, and the village and harbour of Garth had
been swathed from all sight in its grey folds.

It happened that on the afternoon of the third day
Charity Borlase set out from her mother's cottage and
made her way towards the harbour.  Ever since her
sweetheart Poole had been carried off to Bodmin gaol
again, Charity had found her daily life very difficult to
bear.  There were plenty of other fisher lads minded
to console her, their offers backed by her mother's
patronage; but Charity was not a person who could
easily change her affections.  She kept as much as
possible out of sight of the quay with its chaffing,
gossiping groups.  But there were times when indoor
life seemed to be unbearable, and on those occasions
she would take her restless unhappiness for company,
and seeking the edge of the sea try to find the comfort
there that was denied her in her home.

Although the mist was thick, Charity was seaman
enough to know that it would soon be lifting, and taking
her cloak she went quietly down towards the village.
Then, acting on an idle fancy, she turned to her brother's
boat that was moored close to the cottage, and began
to row herself across the water to Polrennan, the little
group of cottages that faced the more important village
of Garth.

As she sculled the boat across, bearing upstream a
little against the eddying tide, the fisher girl's eyes
wandered up the estuary.  In the mist she fancied she
saw farther up the narrowing creek, on the Polrennanside,
a slight figure wrapped in a hood and cloak, walking
rapidly towards the river mouth.  Standing in the
stern, working her oar easily, Charity peered through
the mist which was already rising and falling a little in
the slight easterly breeze.  Again came the glimpse of
the shrouded figure, more easily seen this time, and
the watcher nodded grimly as she recognised the trotting
gait.  She made a swift calculation; realised that if
she drove her boat in straight to the shore she would
run into the arms, so to speak, of the lonely walker.
Charity quietly slipped down to the thwart, took a
second oar, and noiselessly rowed upstream.  She
preferred to land higher up and be at liberty to watch
unseen.  That so far she herself was unseen she was
fairly confident.  Only some one as far-sighted as a
sailor and, moreover, bred to the half-lights of the sea
mists, could have descried her little boat from the
farther bank.

As Charity rowed on, her face wore a scornful expression
that gave way to a firm intentness of purpose.
Although more educated than many of her class,
curiosity and superstition had a large place in her mind.
But more than curiosity impelled Charity to the course
she now took.  No one could live in Garth and not
know the stories that ran to and fro concerning
'Mademoiselle,' who was disliked partly for her
nationality and partly for herself.  Charity, loyal and
devoted to the Admiral and to her beloved Mistress
Marion, and a degree or two removed from her kind,
was perhaps the only woman in the village who had
refused to share the gossip of the quay.  But since the
hurried departure of Victoire, for whom the fisher girl
had a kind of superstitious dislike, even Charity had
thought a good deal of the inmates of the house over
the brow of the hill.

Victoire herself had told Mrs. Borlase, who was
occasionally pressed into service in times of domestic stress
at Garth House, that her old mother in Brittany had
been suddenly found very ailing (all this with Victoire's
handkerchief to her eyes); and Victoire, seized with
contrition on realising that she had not seen her parent
for ten years or so, had obtained permission from that
kindest of all gentlemen, Monsieur the Admiral, to seek
the couch of the sufferer and comfort her declining
hours.

'I should think,' said Charity, when her mother had
told this sad story, ''tis more likely than not the old
lady have some gold under her bed.'

'Shame, Charity!' cried her mother (she was eating
a piece of pie fresh from Victoire's hands).  'Do 'ee go
and pray for a kinder heart.'

'How's her going across?' asked Charity.

'Why, there's her uncle yonder to Plymouth who
sent her word, awaiting for un.  A French sailor un be.'

'Queer they let un land,' mused Charity.

'And how so shouldn't un?  And bearing a letter
for the Admiral himself?  A black heart you'm getting,
my maid, and a black life you'll have.  A'd have more
pride nor letting yonder wastrel down to Bodmin lie in
my thoughts, and honest men like——'

'Now, Mother,' said Charity, her eyes blazing, 'will
'ee be quiet now, Mother?  No word of that will I hear.'

All this, and more, reverted to Charity's mind as she
rowed up the stream, keeping her eye on the blurred
figure every now and then revealed in the mist.  At a
little shingly beach she sprang ashore and moored her
boat unseen.

If there was anything in the tales of the valley,
Mademoiselle Elise would bear over the shoulder of the
hill at the river mouth, out of sight, as she evidently
thought, among the bushes, and drop into a gully a
couple of miles to the east.

Just what she did in 'Haunted Cove' no one rightly
knew, though folk failed not to hint.  It was a foul spot,
only fit for landing a boat in quiet weather.  There were
superstitious tales abroad concerning that creek, and
although curious fishermen had watched a strange boat,
in the fitful moonlight, make for the rocky mouth, and
others had seen the French girl, or her woman, creep
into the cove, nothing would tempt them into its
wrack-strewn caverns.  'The devil had made his bed there,'
they said, 'and 'twas best shunned.'  As for Elise, only
the love and duty they bore for the Admiral had kept
them from denouncing her as a person not untouched
by the dark powers.  For those were days when anything
the unlettered country folk failed to understand
was put down to witchcraft or sorcery.

Charity set herself another course than that taken
by the French girl, a hard road, only possible for strong
limbs and a stout heart.  She knew that with good
fortune she would arrive at a furze-grown bank hard
over the creek before Elise could have reached it from
her own side.

Only when her journey was well afoot did Charity
realise that she was acting against all the superstitions
of Garth.  But having set herself to it, she went
on.  Moreover, Charity could read and write; and it
happened that her little Bible was in her pocket.

'I bean't afeared,' she said stoutly to herself, fingering
the holy book.  'Once and for all I'll be knowing.
For Mistress Marion's sake 'tis only right some one
should be sure.'

Kind-hearted Jack had given her the little Bible, and
talked of the day when they would stand together
before the parson; and Charity, thus drawn to
remembering happier days, became sorrowful again, and
forgot for the moment the object of her walk.

She climbed the hill, and crossing a little copse of
gnarled oaks, made for a gap in the hedge that gave on
to the main riding track leading from the heights
beyond down to Polrennan beach.  She was scarcely
through the gap before she heard the 'tlot-tlot' of a
horse.  The rider seemed to be making inland, climbing
the slope from the waterside.  Fearful of she knew
not what, Charity shrank back into the hedge and
would have regained the shelter of the wood; but it
was too late.  Horse and rider loomed up in the mist
and a ringing voice hailed her.

'Charity!  Is that you, Charity?'

'Why, Master Roger,' cried Charity, the colour
flushing her face in the relief she felt.  'Good afternoon
to you, sir.'

Any one else would have replied, in the custom of the
village folk: 'Where be gooin'?'  And for a moment
Charity's heart was in her mouth.  Then she remembered
that to ask such direct questions was not the way
of the quality.

''Tis rising, I think,' said Roger, idly noting the girl's
confusion, and setting it down in his chivalrous way to
maidenly shyness.  'And time, too, after three days.'

'Wind's to the east, sir,' replied the girl.  'I thought
to-day her'd rise.'

Having dealt with the weather, Roger turned to
personal affairs.  'How are you getting on, Charity?'
he asked kindly, keeping his horse at a walk.

Not since Marion's departure had any sympathy
been meted out to the forlorn girl, and tears rose to her
eyes.  'Why, sir,' she stammered, 'so well as may be.'

Noting her downcast look, Roger beat about in his
mind for something to say.  His dark eyes rested very
gently on the bowed head, but no words came to his aid.

'Well,' he said abruptly, gathering his reins,' I must
be off.  I'm going across to Farmer Penrose, who
declares he has got some straying cattle of mine.  Good
day to you, Charity.'

The girl dropped a curtsey in silence as the horse
moved on.  Then with a sudden movement Roger
wheeled round.

'Keep a cheerful heart, if you can,' he said abruptly.
'There's still a great hope that the lad will be freed.
The Admiral is using all his influence with the Governor
yonder.'  And without waiting for a reply Roger turned
and broke into a canter.  'Poor little maid!' he
mused.  ''Tis hard fortune for her.'

He rode on, keeping to the track, and presently, as
the way opened out on to the rough headland, he cast a
longing eye towards the Channel.  A golden light was
breaking through the mist.  Somewhere beyond that
haze the afternoon was bright and sunny, the sea
rocking the boats in her tranquil embrace.  Roger
never allowed a chance of riding by the sea to escape
him; but after a minute's thought he decided to bear
on in his present course and return by the edge of the
cliffs when the mist would in all probability be cleared
away.  To ride round the head of 'Haunted Cove'—he
smiled at the words—in a mist, was to endanger
the safe-going of his horse and perhaps his own life.
More than one rash horseman, riding by night close in
over the cliffs, had fallen foul of the boulders and
overgrown chasms of the gully mouth, and paid with his
life the price of his folly.

Meanwhile Charity kept on her way.  Somewhere
round the shoulder of the hill the French girl was
bearing towards her mysterious journey's end.  Charity
set herself to the stiff climb with all good will, and
succeeded in reaching the head of the creek, and
completely hiding herself among the furze bushes that
overgrew it, before the slight figure came round the corner
of the headland.

Wrapped in her cloak Charity lay motionless on her
rough couch.  The shrubs, dense with moisture, freely
besprinkled her, but she paid no heed.  Presently the
French girl came in sight.  Charity smiled at her gait,
so unlike the swinging tread of the country-born.
When the tired-looking walker was for a few minutes
hidden from sight behind an outstanding group of
rocks that barred her view, Charity took the occasion
to bend well over the dangerous declivity and look
searchingly into the creek below.  What she saw made
her hastily reconsider her position.

She was too far away up there; she wanted to be
able to hear as well as see, and, as she did not
understand French, not until this moment had Charity
thought hearing would have been of any avail.  But
that man sitting down there on a rock gazing out to
sea was no Frenchman.  Not a dozen miles away had
he been born, and born with a crookedness of mind that
had spoilt the lives of others as well as his own.  He
had betrayed his fellow smugglers to authority once too
often, and been hounded from the parish, with a rope's
end for a prize if ever he returned.  Folk said he had
gone to the Islands, and there continued his fast-and-loose
game between the French and the English.

For all her sense of horror at the idea of Admiral
Penrock's ward having dealings with such a person,
Charity could but pay the man a tribute for his courage
in seeking the cove.  Then, working out the price his
bravery must mean to the young lady now coming to
the creek, Charity frowned and shook her head again.
Much, much gold must have been offered that renegade
to enter the neighbourhood of Garth; and why?

The man down there, watching alternately the headland
path and the sea, now revealing shining lines in the
mist, was unaware of the figure creeping from bush to
bush down the cliff with the skill of one who had often
had nothing but seagulls' eggs between herself and
hunger.  He rose as Elise stepped on to the shingly
beach, and together the two passed to the mouth of the
outer cavern.  On a ledge just above that mouth
crouched Charity Borlase.  The sound of the voices
rose clearly to her ears.

An hour passed.  Elise, her face wearing the
*migraine* look Marion would have understood, was
pale and harassed as at last she rose and handed to the
man a bag that jingled in his fingers.  The last of their
words as they stepped down to the beach just failed to
reach the ears of Charity.  She strained lower to catch
the sound, and one branch of the bush she was holding
snapped and fell.

The speakers looked up in a startled way, and
Charity, forgetting for the moment her screen of bushes,
feared she was undone.  Holding her breath, she
watched the eyes searching the cliff.  To her relief, they
went beyond her perch and rested.  The two down
there stood rooted to the spot.  Charity, in growing
wonder, twisted herself noiselessly round and
discovered, standing on the rocks at the top of the creek,
riding-crop in hand, Roger Trevannion.  Charity was
as securely hidden from his sight as from that of the
others.  She waited in a frightened apprehension.
But Roger said no word.  With a grim sort of smile he
lifted his hat to Mademoiselle Elise and strode away.

Charity peered down again.  The man was looking
at his companion with a sullen, craven air, not without
a gleam of malicious triumph; here was an added
danger which meant more gold.  But the look of
fury and hatred on the girl's face made honest Charity's
heart grow chill.  She heard the words: 'He shall pay
for this!' followed by others beyond her ken.

Five minutes afterwards Elise turned homewards.
Not until the sailor had launched his boat, and hugging
the land closely, sailed out of sight, did Charity rise,
stiff and cramped, and climb the headland again.

That night she sat up long in her little attic room,
and to the tune of the snores of her mother and
brothers she wrote the longest letter it had ever fallen
to her lot to indite.  The task was a burden compared
with which the climbing of the cliffs had been a baby's
play.  The dawn crept into her windows as she finished
it, and not thinking it worth while then to sleep, she
stole downstairs, kindled the fire, set the kettle on the
crook and crept out of the cottage.  She was going to
test the loyalty of old Peter up at Garth House, to post
her letter to Mistress Marion herself, and swear on her
little Bible that he would say a word to none.





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.. _`A MORNING VISIT`:

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   CHAPTER IX


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   A MORNING VISIT

.. vspace:: 2

Peter made the required vow, not dreaming how
soon he would be tested.  For just as he had
made up his mind to create an occasion for going to
Lostwithiel, and, acting on his credit as an old servant,
to take the journey on his own responsibility, who
should walk into the stable-yard but Admiral Penrock.

'Was that little Charity I saw going down the lane.
Peter?' inquired the master.

'Like as not, sir.'

The Admiral prodded the groom's shoulder with his
staff.

'Fie on thee, Peter!  Are these tricks learned in
London?  Thinkst thou canst take Jack Poole's place?'

This idea never having occurred to grey-haired Peter,
he was some time in apprehending it; then, with a
sheepish grin, he accepted the visit of the fisher girl in
the light his master chose to cast upon it.  And not
knowing that the end of Charity's letter was sticking
out of his pocket, the old groom allowed himself to be
poked by the Admiral again, and questioned adroitly
as to the habits of the young lady.  Not a syllable
would Peter utter to break his word to pretty Charity,
and in the end he rode off to Lostwithiel to seek a
fresh bottle of lotion for the horses.

The Admiral stumped after him up the lane.  He was
intending to pay a morning visit to Roger Trevannion.
The boundary wall between the two estates was
crumbling in places, and the Admiral was minded to
arrange with Roger to see to the matter on his behalf.
The early sunlight lay slantingly across the tree-tops,
and the old sailor, noting the freshness of the new green
mantle that overspread the countryside, sighed to
think that so fair a world could be so awry.

Ever since the day, now over a month old, when he
had bidden Marion good-bye and driven back to the
west, he had felt an irksomeness in his duties that was
new to him.  Had his office remained simply that of
magistrate in his own parts, he would not have felt the
burden.  But the Lord Chief-Justice Jeffreys, in scouring
the West Country, had learned that if there was one
man in Cornwall whose loyalty to the Crown was to be
relied upon, that man was Admiral Penrock of Garth.
Consequently, when the spies of Jeffreys, still lurking
in the county after their lord had returned to London,
revealed one or two tracts in Cornwall which the
hounds of the dreaded Judge had not thoroughly drawn,
Jeffreys decided to make the Admiral master of that
particular hunt.  'By fair means or foul,' ran his
order, 'you will run the quarry to earth.'  And the
Admiral, who had a thorough dislike for meddling with
affairs outside his own district, had been obliged to obey.

In various Cornish towns—Bodmin, Truro, St. Austell,
Penzance—a number of soldiers were kept in
readiness for his orders.  His new duties carried him
far and near.  People who had never heard of him
began to have reason for remembering his beetling
brows, his thundering tones.  The Admiral was in a
fair way to become a dreaded person.  In a magistrate
'twas all very well.  But the old sailor carried a warm
heart under his garb of authority, and there were times
when that warm heart was chilled at the thought of the
pain he had brought into many people's lives since
Jeffreys had chosen to lay his commands upon him.

Another reason for disliking his new office had been
the necessity for leaving Garth many days at a time
without a master.  He found himself in the position of
a general who, while conducting wars abroad, neglects
the enemy within his own frontiers.

Two facts, however, brought comfort to the Admiral:
the absence of Marion during this time, and the recent
departure of Victoire for her Breton home.  Elise herself
had never merited the complete distrust that underlay
the old sailor's thoughts of Victoire.  Since Keziah's
uncomfortable revelations he had thought hard and
watched shrewdly—when he was at liberty to watch.
Had he possessed in his service a man of education and
trustworthiness, untinged by the prejudice that coloured
the judgment of the country folk, Garth would not
have been left thus at the mercy of fortune.  But no
such man, Roger Trevannion excepted, had been
within hail, and it was impossible without arousing
suspicion to bring Roger from his own lands to act as
overseer of the Penrock demesne.  Consequently the
Admiral had granted Victoire permission to cross the
Channel without much troubling himself as to any
hidden reason for her departure.

Victoire thus abroad, the old French attorney on
his way to England, the Admiral experienced a sense
of relief.  He looked forward with the heartiest
pleasure to the day when the attorney would arrive
at Garth.  Then he would consider his duty to his old
friend accomplished.  He had fathered Elise in her
growing girlhood; she was now old enough to be
given over to the care of her aunts.  He had certainly
done his utmost to train the girl to standards of
thought which were native to the comrade of his
fighting days.  The fact that in some way Elise's
nature had been warped to begin with, was beyond his
control, and there he left the problem, vaguely
attributing the crookedness to some strain on the mother's
side.  The Admiral had never seen Madame de Delauret.
To contemplate the return of Marion, and the final
departure of his ward and her maid from Garth, was
to the Admiral something akin to watching in the
darkness of the waning night for the daystar of the dawn.
When he arrived at the Manor, Roger was in the
farmyard at the back of the house, setting a dozen men
to their day's work.  He strode to meet his visitor
with a look of pleased surprise.

'This is an honour, sir,' he said heartily, the golden
lights showing in his brown eyes, 'and all the more for
being paid so early.  Will you come indoors for a
tankard of ale?  My mother will be pleased to see you
in the house.'

'Nay,' said the Admiral, nodding to the farm men
who were pulling their forelocks and chanting 'Marnin',
Admur'l!'  'I have but just breakfasted.  Those are
fine horses yonder, Roger.  You keep them well.'

The two moved out of earshot of the menservants.

'I saw Peter in the lane just now, but he said not you
were coming,' remarked Roger.

The sailor's eyes twinkled.  ''Tis a simple soul, that
Peter.  Did he say aught to you of a letter to my
daughter, writ by Charity Borlase, that was in his
pocket and had emptied all the bottles of lotion in the
stables?'

As he spoke, the Admiral was casting a critical eye
over a young cart-horse, the latest addition to the
Manor stables, and he was unaware of Roger's slight
start.

Roger had wondered more than once what could
have been taking Charity up the hillside towards the
headland that overlay Haunted Cove.  In the revelation
of the later afternoon he had remembered the
chance encounter; Charity's embarrassment recurred
to him.

At the sight he had had of Elise in close converse
with the old traitor of Garth, Roger had experienced
a momentary but severe shock.  The idle talk of the
village which, he knew very well, was more than half
due to a deep-rooted hatred for foreigners, he had
honestly tried to discount, putting away the versions
that had reached his ears as gossiping women's tales.
But he was too young, too human, not to be affected in
his judgment by his personal attitude to Victoire and
her young mistress.  The only being to whom he had
ever mentioned the matter had been Dick Hooper, his
boyhood's friend.  Young Dick had shrugged his
shoulders.  'Wait a bit.  Ill weeds grow for cutting.
The girl's crooked, but the woman's wicked.'  And
so the subject had been passed by.

And now the distrust and dislike of close on ten
years, and the memory of the persistent tales of the
villagers, had suddenly made for Roger an inflammable
track down which the spark of a strong suspicion raced.
The burning revelation ran into words, right enough,
clear as the flaming signs on the wall at Belshazzar's
feast.  'Thou art tried in the balances and found
wanting,' flickered the gleaming letters, as of old, and
then died away.  And Roger was left pondering as to
the nature of the final word which must lie somewhere,
at present unillumined.  When and whence that final
proof must appear, Roger could not guess; but he
had read the riddle well enough to be profoundly
uncomfortable as to its portent, and, more than
all, as to its effects on the house of Garth.

A fatherless son, heir to an estate the control of
which called for judgment and action, Roger had
learned the weight of responsibility when most youths
of his age and class had been conning Greek and Latin
texts.  And now his first thought had been as to his
own share in the matter.  What was his duty towards
the Admiral and Marion?  *Marion*.  His heart had
stirred at the passing thought of Marion, of her sweet
wholesomeness, her contempt for double dealing, her
outspoken truth.  To think of her just then was like
looking from a dark, secretly stirred pool to an open,
sunswept stream.

What could have been Elise's business yonder?
Could it be political?  Something connected with
denunciations of still hidden Monmouth men?  Hardly
so; rumours in the village had been years old
before ever Monmouth landed at Lyme.  And yet,
these were days of distrust and treachery.  Could
some dark fate be hurling suspicion at the heads
of the two people whom, next to his mother, he
loved wholly?

Roger had ridden home in the company of unhappy
thoughts, slowly resolving that he must trace the
trouble to its source, and begin with the Admiral
himself.

The chance mention of Charity, however, made Roger
pause.  Charity had been writing to Marion.  Perhaps
it would be well to see Charity first.  His instinct was
that whatever had been her business that afternoon,
Charity was friend and not foe.  On seeing the Admiral,
his first thought had been to take advantage of his
visit and unburden himself at once of the story.  Now,
in secret relief, he put the idea aside, determining first
to learn what was Charity's part in the affair.  So,
while the Admiral was poking among his horses, Roger's
thoughts ran; he turned gladly for the moment out
of the shadow that had fallen across his path, not knowing
that a small cloud, the size of a man's hand, lay on
the far horizon.

Talking of farming matters, the two started on a
leisurely survey of the Manor close, and presently came
on the beech-topped hedge that was the northern
boundary of the Garth lands.  Leaning on the gate set
in the hedge, they lingered some time.  The conversation
had fallen on the near prospect of a letter from
Marion, on her life in Kensington; on the French
attorney's visit, the contemplation of which, though
neither knew the other's thought, brought to each a
sense of comfort.

From the gate a little path ran down towards the
house, making a diagonal course through the
intervening pastures.  The Admiral, about to light his
second pipe, paused, tinder-box in hand, and stared
across the fields.  His face darkened.

'If I mistake not, yonder is one of Jeffreys' couriers.
What fresh business is toward now?  Could it not
have waited my return to the house?'

'I thought your work in that direction was finished, sir.'

'So did I.  So did I.  You see what a price one pays,
my lad, for being an honest man.  I declare, I thought
when my lord's last letter came, that I would go to sea
again, that I did, stump and all, so as to be free of this
scurvy business.'

'The man will hear you, sir,' ventured Roger.

'Let him!  Let him!  He's heartily welcome!'  But
none the less the old man struck his flint, and
contented himself by roaring into the mouthpiece of his
pipe.

Roger's eyes twinkled.  In just such a way had the
motherless bull-calf he had fed that morning growled
with his head in the bucket, his mouth full.  Roger
stored up the incident to take a place in the pantomime
rehearsal of her father's stray doings and sayings which
Marion would be sure to demand on her return.  The
gold lights danced afresh in Roger's eyes as his little
playmate rose before his mental vision.

The rider was now at speaking distance.  He had the
appearance of hard travelling, and as he came up,
Roger's instant sympathy fell on the horse.  When the
messenger dismounted, saluted the Admiral, and
proceeded to fumble for his letter, explaining that he had
been sent on from the house, Roger stepped to the
animal's side.  'Poor brute!' was his thought as he
stroked the steaming flank, and cast a critical eye on
the girth, having a mind to undo it for a time and make
the man rest at the Manor.

'You have ridden fast,' said the Admiral in surly
tones.  'Why shorten the life of a good horse?'

'My lord's orders, sir,' said the man.  'He can never
abide the idea of wasting an hour when there's work to
be done.'

'Did your lord require an answer?'

'He did not, sir.'

'Will you not ride down to the house and rest
yourself and your animal?'

'I thank you greatly, sir,' said the man, passing
his hand across his face, seared with the sweat and
dust of his journey, 'but I am to be in Taunton ere
nightfall.'

'In Taunton, on this brute?' cried Roger.

'I shall change horses at Bodmin,' said the messenger.
As he spoke, he took the bridle.  'Can I cross the
fields here to the Bodmin road?'

'I'll show you the way,' said Roger, and walking
a few yards with the man, he pointed out, through a
break in the inner hedge, the Bodmin road lying in the
valley.

'Does your master pay you?' asked Roger abruptly.

'Aye, sir, well enough.'

''Tis a pity he can't pay the horse.  A finer grey I
never saw.  It grieves me to see a brute wasted so.
Here's a shilling.  Promise you will give him a fair
bucket of oats—or, if he sweats more, a bran mash
and a warm belly cloth.'

The man's eyes softened.  'I promise.  You're
very good, sir.'

'Nay, nay.  But it goes to my heart to see that
horse wasted so.  Good morning.'

Roger strode back to the gate where the Admiral was
still standing.  From the letter in his hand dangled
the strings and seals of the Lord Chancellor.  Roger
paused and hung back a trifle, wondering were it best
to leave him.  Whatever might be the new business to
hand, he could see the Admiral's wrath was gathering.
His face purpled, the eyes growing round as a parrot's.
For a second he appeared to be on the point of choking.
Suddenly he dashed the letter to the ground, and swung
round on Roger.  Digging his staff into the turf, he
spluttered in incomprehensible rage.

'I will not do it!' he roared.  'By the Lord Harry, I
will not!'

Suddenly his fury fell away.  He seated himself in
the hedge and passed a hand over his face.  'Dick!'
he said hoarsely.  'Poor lad!'

Roger stiffened.  His eyebrows drew together, his
mouth tightened.  He stared down at the letter.

'Dick?  Did you say Dick?'

'Ay, Dick Hooper.  'Tis there.  An order to arrange
for the arrest of the person of Richard Merrion
Hooper, in the Parish of St. Brennion.'

Roger stared down at the written sheet, his face paling
under the sunburn.

'Impossible!' he jerked out.  'Dick's a loyalist
like yourself.'

'Nothing is impossible in these days.'

'What has he done?'

'That I am not told.  Mayhap he has looked in
pity at the creaking bones of a wretch hanging at the
cross roads for Monmouth's sake.'

Roger turned, and leaning on the gate, buried his
head on his arm.  The tlot, tlot of a horse on the road
below rose in the stillness of the morning.  'I could
wish the brute had foundered and thrown his rider
into the ditch—that highwaymen had seized him and
his cursed letter,' ran the Admiral's thoughts, as,
unconscious of his companion, he stared down the quiet
slope.  Far below showed the north front of Garth, the
chimneys cutting the shining bar of the sea into
irregular shapes.  Only one window was visible through
the trees of the garden—the window of the Admiral's
study which, in an upper storey, ran the width of one
wing, looking out on one hand on the Channel, and on
the other to the rising land of the pastures.  In the
middle of the room stood the old sailor's beloved
telescope, through which Roger had many times
studied the rig of passing vessels.  It happened that
as the Admiral was staring out to sea, small thin fingers
were swinging the telescope round to the north, and
very soon the two men were plain to the eyes of
Mademoiselle Elise, who was supposed by the housekeeper
to be still in her bed.

The Admiral turned and saw the black head bent over
the gate.  He sighed, and rising to his feet picked up
the letter.

Roger roused himself.  His thoughts had been far
away, scenes of his boyhood passing before his closed
eyes: Dick's deep-notched oaken bench at Blundell's,
which had been next his own; their twin escapades
and truancies, punishments and advancements; the
holidays Dick had spent at the Manor.

'I thought Dick was at Oxford,' he stumbled at
length.  Then recollecting: 'Nay, he is reading with a
tutor to enter Oriel at Michaelmas.'

'A thousand pities he had not gone.'

Again fell the silence; then Roger's rather husky
tones: 'Must you do this thing, sir?'

'I must.'

'And will you?'

The old Salt Eagle looked sorrowfully into the brown
eyes facing him.  He made a step down the slope.

'Would to God,' he blazed out suddenly, 'that
Jeffreys had chosen another man!'  Then, sobering:
'But I must.  I cannot forget, after all, that my duty
is not to serve Jeffreys, but Jeffreys' king.  I shall
drive out after dinner to Liskeard to see the officer
there.  But fear not, Roger, I shall do my utmost to
get him freed.'

Roger was silent.  He knew too well how unavailing,
in the main, were such efforts.

'Is his father living?'

Roger nodded.

'And his mother?  I forget.'

'She died while Dick was at Blundell's.'

'Thank God for that!' said the Admiral in low tones.

'May you not just inquire into the matter and
report?' came Roger's husky tones.  'I had rather
any one had gone but Dick.'

'Jeffreys prefers to make his inquiries behind bolt
and bar.'

'Look here, sir,' said Roger, his face as hard as his
voice.  'I——' he stopped abruptly, then a minute later,
with a brief 'Good morning,' he swung round, and
before the Admiral could speak, was striding up the
slope.

The old seaman leaned heavily on his staff as he
stumbled down the hillside, jerking his wooden leg
over the uneven ground.  'I could pray for an ague to
seize me,' ran his thoughts, 'an asp to sting me, a
draught to sicken my stomach.  Anything to keep
me from this hateful task.  Poor Dick!  And poor
Roger!  'Twas a hard blow.'

Half way down the slope the Admiral stopped short,
arrested by an uneasy thought.  For the first time
since Jeffreys had laid his commands upon him he had
failed in his duty, betrayed his trust, spoken to another
of business of sworn secrecy.  Completely forgetful of
his obligations, and overborne by the weight of personal
association, he had talked like an idle woman.

Hot on the heels of the first consideration ran a
second.  He had spoken freely of the arrest to the
greatest friend of the condemned man.  Could it be
possible Roger would——?  He had better walk back to
the Manor, to make the boy promise secrecy.  What
would Roger do?  A gleam ran across the old face.
He turned and scanned the pastures.  Roger was
nowhere to be seen.  A look of uncertainty was in the
man's eyes as he stood, idly digging into a young gorse
bush with his staff.  His thoughts ranged themselves in
two lines: dual personalities facing each other.  On the
one hand was the loyal seaman who would at any time
have risked the gallows for a friend's sake; on the
other the stern, justice-loving magistrate.

'You don't know what he may do,' came the one
voice, 'and any way, you'd do the same yourself.'

'Go up and order him in the King's name to keep
the matter secret,' came the reply.  'You can trust
his given word.'

'Leave him alone,' retorted the first.  ''Tis not for
you to dictate what a man may do for his friend.'

'Duty!  Duty!' cried the other.

'And Dick's an honest lad; you know he is guiltless.
'Tis but a foul whisper.  He deserves a timely
warning.'

'A magistrate has no ties.  Duty!  Duty!'

And so the mimic battle raged behind the eagle
brows.  In the end, not without a smile of grim
humour, the Admiral offered a truce.  He would not
interfere with Roger.  In any case, the lad might
never have considered taking any step, and time would
be wasted on the errand.  His magisterial self the old
seaman soothed by a promise of utmost haste.  Instead
of ordering the coach for after dinner, he would
drive out at once, and eat from a hamper on the
carriage seat.  Having thus silenced the mental
combatants, the Admiral kept his bargain to the letter.  In
a few minutes he was back at the house, giving orders
to a flurried housekeeper.

Peter being absent on Charity's affairs, the Admiral
was obliged to see to his change of garb himself.  But
here Elise proved herself uncommonly thoughtful.
Hearing from Mrs. Curnow that the master was bound
to Liskeard on urgent business, and would not be home
till the morrow, and was in an uneasy temper because
his man was out on an errand and he must fasten his
own cloak and see to his pistols himself, Elise proceeded
to the Admiral's room to offer such services as might be
at her command.  She found the door of the room
ajar, and knew from neighbouring sounds that the
Admiral was in the study.  In his haste the sailor had
thrown the fateful letter on the bed, with his work-a-day
coat; the sharp eyes of Mademoiselle caught the red of
the seals.  A minute later she was out of the room
again, her light step making no sound.  When the
Admiral was safely back in his bedchamber, she returned
along the passage, her high heels clicking hard
on the boards.

'I wanted to help you, if I might, sir,' came her
voice at the door, and pleased at such thoughtfulness,
the Admiral bade her enter.  By that time the letter
was in his pocket again.

As soon as the coach had left the courtyard, Elise
stepped out, and crossing the pastures made her way
towards the Manor Farm.  A workman on the south
fields was busy ditching, and from him, by dint of
casual remarks, Elise learned that Master Roger had
taken the fastest horse and ridden away some two
hours ago.

Elise waited to hear no more.  There was a light of
triumph in her eyes as she trotted back to Garth.
Presently an under groom was ordered to saddle Molly.
Mademoiselle was bored by the inaction of life so lonely
at Garth, and she was wishful to ride out to Bodmin and
make a trifling purchase.  She did not deem it necessary
to add that it was her intention, while her escort was
supping at the *King's Head*, to find means to send a
few words to the Governor of Bodmin Gaol.





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.. _`FOREBODING`:

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   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium bold

   FOREBODING

.. vspace:: 2

It was the night of the ball in Kensington, and as
if the heavens had conspired with Lady Fairfax
to create a scene of loveliness, threatening clouds had
passed with sunset to show a slip of a new moon and
peeping stars.  The dancing-rooms opened on to a
long terrace at the south side of the house, and in the
warm evening the windows were set wide.  Just
below the terrace lay my lady's rose bed, and near by
a patch of mignonette and stock and heavy bushes of
lavender joined their fragrance to the scent of the
roses.

Lady Fairfax stepped out on to the terrace, seeking
a minute's respite from her duties.  The silver arc
was just hovering above the trees, and Colonel Sampson,
who had gone below for a lace scarf, emerged from
the house in time to see his hostess gravely curtseying
three times to the heavenly visitor.  The rite
performed, my lady received the shawl, and for a space
the old friends walked along the terrace in silence.
Through the open windows sounded low voices and
laughter.  The ball-room was thronged, and the two
without could hear, close to the casement, the swish
of brocaded robes on the shining oaken floor.  From
the raised gallery came the slow air of a minuet, the
fiddlers' strains blending with the tones of the flute and
the sweet tinkle of a harp.

The loiterers on the terrace had not taken many
turns before Sir John Fairfax joined them.

'I may but stay a moment,' he said.  'The house
should not be left thus.'

'The house is very well, dear lad,' said his wife
serenely.  'My guests are never dull, for the reason
that dull folk are never my guests.  Are you playing
cards below?'

'From what I see, no one has thought of anything
save either dancing or watching the dance.  But, my
dear, I have news that will cause you some dismay.'

Lady Fairfax stopped in her walk.  'The Queen?
I knew it!' she said grimly, as her husband nodded.
'Am I wanted this very hour?'

'To-morrow, to accompany Her Majesty to Tunbridge.'

Lady Fairfax walked on a pace or two, then stopped
and looked upwards.  'Did I not curtsey humbly
enough, fair maiden?  Why such an ill reward?'  She
resumed her walk.  'La, la! 'tis an uncertain
world.  But I am mightily grateful to the powders for
lasting so long as they did.  I have been dreading this
summons for a week past.  Her Majesty has been
looking vastly yellow again.  But what am I to do
with Marion?'

'Leave her with me?'

'Yes, Grandam, but what will you do with her?'

'Give her a few days' rest.  She has had over much
turmoil and excitement of late.  She shall hem sheets
and talk to Simone.  I will see she takes the air.  But
I trust you may not be long away.  My Lord Churchill
is urging an expedition.'

'Secret, no doubt?'

'Ay, dear love—secret.'

'Should you be gone, I will take your place, Jack,'
said Sampson.  'And I have not yet seen the little
Simone, but from what I hear she is an excellent
companion.  Marion will not be lonesome.'

'I must go and see Martin a moment,' said Lady
Fairfax, turning indoors.  'Pray excuse me, Colonel.'

The two men continued their walk.

'I wish the old Salt Eagle had been here to-night,'
said Sampson, as his host paused outside one of the
windows.

'But she was frightened out of her wits at first,'
smiled the other.  'Her face was as white as yonder
white roses in the bowl, when she stepped out for her
first dance.  Did you note it?'

'She is not nervous now.  Look yonder!'

The two stood in the darkness without, watching.
In the light of hundreds of candles beautiful women and
richly clad men moved to and fro to the strains of the
dance.  Against the darkness of the panelled walls
jewels flashed in a maze of colour, and behind the
dancers, passing in and out of the doors, other figures
filled in the brilliant pageant.  All the youth and
heyday of the Court were in Kensington this night.
And stepping to and fro among them as she danced the
minuet, Marion looked like a gold and white lily set
amid tropical blooms.  The spots of turquoise in her
pearl necklace sought and found the blue-green touches
in the embroideries of her dress.  Trained along the
wide cream skirt was a faint design of blue and gold.
It was the only dress in the room so restrained in colour,
and, surmounted by the white of bosom and neck, the
warm paleness of the face and sudden glory of the hair,
it drew from the eyes of both men and women an open
or covert admiration.

The younger ladies became a trifle critical of their
rich colours, their powder and rouge and
patches—adornments which Marion had steadily refused; the
matrons who were looking on recorded another instance
of the faultless taste of Lady Fairfax: she had tuned
the girl's appearance to the key-note of her personality.
The men, knowing nothing of these subtleties, watching
her serious face as she danced, her unlikeness to
the women of London society, her quaint girlish
dignity, felt the pleasure that novelty gives, and
revelled in the new sensation.

Without knowing it, the 'little niece' was indeed a
revelation to the dancers who shared her company that
night.  Having been brought up by the Admiral as
simply as if she had been a boy, she was singularly
free from self-consciousness; and not only was she
outspoken and honest in her speech, but a vein of
humour, clear gold, ran through her thoughts
continually.  Thus, as the night wore on, the gentlemen
leading Marion to and fro in the dance, or sitting by
her side in the rooms below, or walking by her on
the terrace flags, found that their whispers of adulation,
their extravagant utterances, which were commonplaces
in the social intercourse of the day, were wasted
on the young lady they had thought to please.  Their
choicest seeds fell on stony ground.  Marion had never
learned to simper and look coy in the face of outrageous
flattery.  She would listen for a while, amazed at such
arrant foolishness, the twinkle in her eyes hidden under
the long dark lashes about which the speakers failed not
to wax so eloquent.  Then the admiring ones, taking
breath for a still higher flight, would see the grave,
downward drooping lips suddenly betray her thoughts,
her face break into an open merriment that shook the
wind from their eloquence and tore into shreds their
mounting self-conceit.

.. _`118`:

But Marion could not be human and not know the
joy and intoxication of success.  At the beginning of
the evening, when her aunt's guests had been presented
to her, and received her cold little fingers, she had
felt outcast and forlorn, something to be hidden from
the sight of all that beauty and grandeur.  Then when
the truth was borne home that she herself, and not any
one of the Court damsels she envied, was the central
figure; that each man there seemed to be a visitor
merely to do her homage, first and throughout, Marion's
mood changed.  She had always loved to dance;
the admiration in the eyes opposite as she came and
went in the minuet set her own eyes all the brighter,
and threw a lightness and glow into her being.  She
was sipping the wine of youth from a goblet of gold,
and only later did she realise how sweet that first
draught had been.

Just after supper she ran up stairs to ask Simone to
cut a shred from her silk petticoat which an unwary
foot had caught on the stairs.  Her room was empty.
As she went to the dressing-table for a pair of scissors,
a letter caught her eye.

It was addressed in a laborious, unfamiliar hand.
Wonderingly Marion broke the seal, and unfolded the
sheet, looking first at the signature at the close of the
letter.

'Little Charity!  Of all persons in the world to have
writ me!  Can Jack have escaped again?'

Somewhat dazed at the suddenness with which the
thought of Garth had leapt from some dim spot of
memory direct to the immediate moment, Marion sat
down and began to read Charity's letter.  The writing
was ungainly, in parts half illegible, the words ill spelt.
Marion re-read several sentences before she began to
grasp their meaning.  It was something about Elise.
Then she saw Roger's name.  A chill of fear, the colder
because it was shapeless, seized her, throttling the
warm happiness that pulsed in her veins.  She turned
back to read the sentence again.  Roger—what was
this about Roger?

As she bent over the letter in the light of her
dressing-table sconces, Lady Fairfax passed the door and
looked in.

'Marion!  Why are you up here?'

'There's a letter here from Charity,' said Marion
absently, reading on as she spoke, 'and——'

Lady Fairfax crossed the room, and laid her hand
on the girl's arm.  'My darling, you cannot behave
thus.  Listen: there is the music of the galliard
which Londoners are dancing to-night in honour of
my country maid.  Do you not hear yonder Cornish
air?  They are waiting on you before they can begin.
Who is your partner?'

Lady Fairfax gently took the letter from the girl's
cold fingers, and bending down, pressed a kiss on
her cheek.

'Captain Beckenham is my partner, Aunt Constance.'

The tone of the voice caught the ear of the older
woman.  She looked at the face reflected in the
looking-glass.

'Come, come!  What is this letter?'

''Tis something about Elise and—I like it not.  But
I had rather finish it, Aunt Constance.'

A grave rebuke flashed in and out of the lady's eyes.

'Elise can wait.  She has waited thus long.  And
there are days and days to read it in.  But
to-night—this is *your* ball, and your guests are waiting on your
pleasure.  Where is the smiling face I saw ten minutes
ago?'

Marion got up, and taking the scissors cut the
fragment from her petticoat.  True to her character,
she made no outward show of the unhappiness that
had seized her.  'Where is Simone?'

'Helping Martin.'

'Why so, Aunt Constance?'  With mechanical
fingers, Marion tidied a tress of her bright hair.

'I will tell you later, my child.  Run downstairs
now; and remember this is your special dance.  I am
following, but I must attend to the older folk in the
card-room.'

Obediently Marion went downstairs.  The ballroom,
which had seemed all brightness and music a
little time before, now appeared full of alien presences
whose voices jarred upon her.  She was scarcely aware
of the low bow of her partner, of his extended hand;
with an unaccustomed heaviness in her step she took
her place at the head of the long line.  Then glancing
towards the musicians' gallery as the fiddlers struck up
the country air, she saw the wrinkled face of old
Zacchary behind the performers, his eyes, full of pride
and tenderness, watching the 'little maid' who was
his delight.  A sudden vision of her father came upon
her.  She rallied.  Her head rose a little.  She threw
a smile to Zacchary, and holding her fingers to her
partner, went lightly down between the ranks, curtseying
and turning and retracing her steps in the maze of
the country dance.  Once begun, the movement left
her no time for thought.  Only when Captain
Beckenham led her to her seat and handed her her fan,
did she realise how heavy lay her heart, what bitter
drops had marred the wine and dulled the sparkling
rim of the goblet.  Presently Colonel Sampson strolled up.

'I should guess my lady has told you the news,
Mistress Marion.  'Tis writ in your sober look.'

'What news?' cried the young gentleman, rising
to his feet as the old soldier spoke.

'Why, here is Lady Fairfax summoned to attend Her
Majesty to Tunbridge on the morrow.'

Marion remained silent as the two talked a little of
the Royal invalid, content that her gravity, which in
spite of her efforts was evidently noticeable, should be
set down to that cause.  The news of her aunt's
departure seemed to lay another weight upon her spirits,
but she realised that much as she loved her aunt, the
heaviness of the thought that she must be thus parted
from her was slight compared with that other
unformed, unnamed burden that threatened her; she
had not had time to learn the meaning of Charity's
letter.

Captain Beckenham glanced down at the girl.  Her
fingers were playing with the handle of her fan; her
mind seemed elsewhere.

'I could wish Her Majesty's illness had waited
another day,' he said with a deep sigh.  ''Tis a most
unkind cloud to spread itself over the face of the sun,
and leave the earth desolate and dark.  And quite
possibly I shall be bidden, either in Her Majesty's
suite, or to follow.'

Marion looked up with one of her mocking smiles as
the young guardsman, with a meaning look, and his
hand flourishing, bowed low.  But the older eyes
watching saw that something was amiss.  Mr. Sampson
drew up a vacant chair, and rewarded beforehand by a
look from Marion, succeeded in maintaining an easy
conversation in which the girl's share was light.

Presently Lady Fairfax appeared in the ball-room,
and immediately, it seemed, became the centre of a
lively group.  Marion, watching her aunt, felt suddenly
ashamed.  The one glance Lady Fairfax had bestowed
upon her told more than spoken words.  'A hostess in
a ball-room has no place for private feelings,' said those
challenging eyes.

Marion mentally shook herself afresh; turned to a
young man who was hovering near, and indicated with
her fan an empty seat.  The new-comer, more bronzed
than his fellows, had just left his ship at Greenwich.
Marion smiled on him, and threw out a few sea-going
phrases; and the young sailor, who had coveted the
honour of speaking to the daughter of the old Salt
Eagle, was rewarded by hearing stories of him from
the lady herself.  The two passed out on to the terrace,
and the music of the next dance went by unheeded.

Presently others came to claim her attention.
Somehow the evening wore away, and such was Marion's
will upon herself, that no one besides Colonel Sampson
and Lady Fairfax had any suspicion that her heart
belied her face.  With her uncle and aunt she stood
at the head of the staircase as the guests took their
leave.  Presently all were gone but Sampson.

'Stay and have a glass of wine, Colonel,' said Lady
Fairfax.  'I vow I am hungry again.'

But Mr. Sampson, with a low bow, declined the
invitation, and turning to Marion, asked for the
pleasure of her company on a drive the following day.

'Excellent!' said Lady Fairfax.  'The fresh air
will be very beneficial.'

Marion gravely thanked the gentleman, and bending
over her hand he contrived to throw into his gesture
and parting look just the amount of friendliness she
could bear.

'Then we will have our wine and cake together in
your room,' said Lady Fairfax, passing her arm round
Marion's waist.  'You can read yonder letter and tell
me all about it.  You have done bravely this last hour.'





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AUNT AND NIECE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium bold

   AUNT AND NIECE

.. vspace:: 2

Marion lay in her bed, staring through the
drawn curtains into the dark night.  Her
window was ajar, and sweet cool airs played fitfully
in the room.  It was past three o'clock; soon the
summer dawn would break; cocks crowed faintly in
the farmyards that dotted the fields beyond Kensington
village.

To and fro Marion turned, chafing at the hotness of
her bed, trying to find a cool space for her body and a
spot on the pillow that might tempt her throbbing
head to lie still.  The only ease she could gain was by
turning a certain way, her eyes on the quiet vagueness
of the sky.  She kept telling herself there was no
cause for this turmoil of mind; time after time she
turned her thoughts back to the ball, thinking of the
dances, of a certain melody that had pleased her so
that she had sent to the fiddlers to play it again—of
the men and women whose language and manners,
still unfamiliar, fascinated her and gave her the pleasant
feeling of being at home in a strange land.  But behind
their faces she saw that of Charity; running with the
strains of the minuet was a phrase she could not
forget—'i be afeered, Mistress Marion, mightilie afeered,
and moste of al for Master Roger.'

'Who is this Charity?' Lady Fairfax had asked
after she herself, at Marion's request, had read the
sprawled sheet.  On learning the story of the girl,
and hearing of the hostile feeling of Garth for the
Admiral's ward, the first instinct of Lady Fairfax
had been to take the part of her own class against
another that was uneducated, prejudiced, and
superstitious to a degree.

'You can't get away from what is in your blood,'
argued the lady.  'Those Cornish fisherfolk are the
children of countless generations that have spent
themselves in enmity with the French: a continual
cross-channel warfare.  They first hate the Devon
men, because they are not Cornish, and then they hate
the French because they are not English.  To their
way of thinking the only people who have any excuse
to be alive, or have any hope to enter heaven, are
English folk who have been born and bred in Cornwall.'

Marion smiled faintly.  'True enough, Aunt Constance.
But you don't know Elise.'

'I don't know Elise, my dear.  There you are right.
But I do know that Elise, the daughter of Monsieur de
Delauret and the granddaughter of the old Vicomte
d'Artois, is bred and born a gentlewoman.  You
cannot turn your back on your own class and take the
peasant view against them.  And has not Elise been
your companion and playfellow all these years?
Leave for a moment this present problem—a difficult
one, I grant you—and consider Elise in the light of a
ten years' friendship.  What have you against her?

'Nothing,' said Marion falteringly.  'That is, until
Aunt Keziah came and made me somehow see Elise in
a different way.  And—besides——'

'The "besides,"' smiled Lady Fairfax, 'is generally
the root of the whole matter.'

Marion's cream and gold lace dress had been taken
off, and a light dressing-gown thrown about her, and
Lady Fairfax, similarly disrobed, was tending the long
russet hair.

With her brush swish swish through the shining
tresses, Lady Fairfax waited.  'And besides?'

In as few words as possible Marion told the story of
Jack Poole's arrest, and Elise's vindictive remarks at
supper.

'What did your father say?'

'He was angry.  I never saw him angry with her
before.  It was not only unkind of Elise, but 'twas
a most dangerous thing to say, as Father explained.
You don't know one hundredth part of the horror of
that rising in the West, Aunt Constance.  If one of the
servants had heard her, and there had chanced to be a
countryman, a tinker or a packman, in the kitchens—and
of course you know passing folk are always welcomed
by the servants—Roger might have been hanged
on the strength of that.'

The lady was silent a moment.  'Well, well,' she
resumed, 'Roger was not hanged.  But, my dear
love, for a girl coming to womanhood you are strangely
blind.  Have you not told me before that this youth
Roger could not abide Elise?'

'No more he could.  Well?'

'Is not that a reason for Elise's hating Roger?  A
woman can forgive a man almost everything except
disliking her, and showing it.'

'Elise is only a girl.'

'A rose-bud is all the same a rose.'

Marion twined a stray wisp of hair round and round
her fingers.  'Granted all that, Aunt Constance, why
should Elise be continually going down to Haunted
Cove, and to see such a horrible man?'

'Who says she is going continually?'

'Well—Charity says everybody says so.'

'Which means,' said Lady Fairfax tartly, 'that some
one may have seen her twice.  You don't know the
Cornish as well as I do.'

'I will not hear another word against my people,
Aunt Constance.  You have naught but unkindness
for them.'  Marion tossed her hair free, and sprang to
her feet.

'La, la!' said Lady Fairfax.  'Am I not "your
own people?"  And therefore theirs?  Oh, my
precious baby, what an infant you are!'  The
speaker suddenly caught the girl in her arms and drew
her to a low seat.  Marion's head fell on her shoulder,
and her tears dropped.

'I am so unhappy, Aunt Constance.'

'But, my darling, I assure you there is nothing to be
unhappy about.'

There was a silence for a few minutes.  Then Marion
slipped from her aunt's arms to the hearthrug, and
laid her head against her knee.  'I am too big a
baby to be nursed, dear Aunt Constance.  I shall
tire you.'

'I was not complaining,' said the childless woman,
letting her arms fall.

'But why should she have gone even once down to
Haunted Cove to meet that man?' Marion resumed
after a while.

'There, my dear, is a question I cannot answer.
But until you know more about it, is it not only fair
to give Elise the benefit of the doubt?  And as for the
words she said: "He shall pay for this," why—the
girl was furious, and let out the words in her spleen
that she would otherwise have withheld.  People spit
out queer things when they are angry.  Anger and
madness are closely akin.'

'And another thing,' resumed Lady Fairfax,
stroking the bright head.  'Your father is a shrewd
man.  He will not have forgotten that speech of
Elise's.  If he thinks in sober judgment there is
anything against the maid, he will be watching her.
Sooner or later these tales will reach him.  If that little
Charity had been worth her salt, she would have gone
to him, and not writ that hysterical letter to you.'

'She would not dare, I am afraid, to seek my father.'

'Because he would pull her ears for a gossiping
busy-body.  And don't you see, my dear, how
foolish it is to think that Roger and your father
can come to some mishap through the malice of
your father's ward?  Leave the men to take care
of themselves.  I declare I shall hate that Roger if the
thought of some passing danger for him spoils your
visit here.'

'I have known Roger ever since I could walk,' said
Marion softly.  'He was brother and sister and
playfellow.'

'You can't wrap him in silk shawls and set him in a
drawing-room.  He will have to play his part; and
you can't either prevent it or take one jot or tittle from
it.  How long has this letter been in coming?'

Marion took up the sheet.  'Close on two weeks.
It must have been sadly delayed.'

'Then everything must still be well.  Your father
would have written and sent a special messenger,
otherwise.  And now, my darling, I insist on your
going to bed.  Come, I will play your nurse and undress
you.  'Tis the last time—for some days.'

When her aunt had given her a good-night kiss and
had left her, Marion had felt somewhat eased, but her
brain, being thoroughly aroused, was not so lightly to
be lulled to drowsiness.  Instead of becoming sleepy,
Marion became more wakeful.  All the knowledge she
had of the terrors of the Monmouth rising and the
fearful aftermath of Jeffreys' revenge came to her mind.
To and fro, between that subject—to which Elise's
reported threat concerning Roger had led her—and
the subject of Elise's own doings, Marion's thoughts
went like a sentry on a beat.  The watchman passing
the square called one o'clock, two o'clock, three
o'clock; and still Marion's weary head tossed about
in the seeming endlessness of a wakeful night.  At
length, as the dawn crept up over the trees of the
gardens, and the first bird twittered, Marion lay still,
conscious of the blessed relief of approaching sleep.

At ten o'clock, when her aunt came quietly in,
after Simone's report of Marion's continued slumber,
the bright head still lay motionless in the nest of the
pillow.  Marion was sleeping the sleep of mental and
physical exhaustion.  Her aunt crept quietly out.
'I will not wake her,' she said.  'But the coach is
ready.  I must be gone.'

Simone crept back into the room and sat by the
window, alternately watching the slumberer and the
needlework in her lap.  She had divined that
something was amiss with her young lady, and was
divided between the joy of having Marion to herself, to
comfort if need be, and sorrow for her troubled state.

The sun was high in the heavens when Marion at
last awoke.  She lay awhile watching Simone, busy
with her clothes and her ewer of water.  The dread of
the previous night did not recur.  She was conscious
of a distant uneasiness, but more inclined to rest on
her aunt's judgment.  But presently she discovered
that much thought would be impossible that day.
Perhaps she had slept too long; perhaps Nature was
taking her revenge for the strain of mingled excitement
and pleasure and anxious thought of the previous
evening.  The only severe headache she had ever
known laid its grip upon her.  As the day wore on,
she was content to lie on a low couch by the window
with Simone in silent readiness at her side.

At three o'clock Colonel Sampson came to the house,
and learning that the young mistress was ailing: 'Is
Mistress Marion too unwell to see me?' he asked.
'Pray tell her I am below.'

The servant ushered him into Lady Fairfax's little
sitting-room, the identical spot where he had first seen
the pale, travel-worn face of the young girl in whose
company he had found such refreshment.  Presently a
light step sounded on the stair, and the curtain fell
aside.

'Monsieur le Colonel,' said Simone, and dropped a
low curtsey.

Sampson stared at the slim, graceful figure rising
slowly from the perfect salutation, at the smooth little
head and dainty face.  Then recollecting himself,
though blinking a little as at an apparition, he made
his inquiries concerning the young mistress.

'Mademoiselle finds herself far from well,' came
Simone's low even tones, 'and would take it as a favour
if Monsieur le Colonel would release her from the
promise of the drive.  Mademoiselle has a severe
migraine.  To-morrow, perhaps, if Monsieur le Colonel
is good enough, Mademoiselle will be pleased to take
the air.'

'I shall be delighted, Mademoiselle,' said the Colonel,
with a slight bow.

Simone crossed the room, and called the servant
from the hall.

'Show Monsieur le Colonel out,' said Simone,
dropping a curtsey as the visitor passed her.

When the boy opened the hall door, Sampson
turned.  Simone was mounting the stairs.  Again
he blinked, and passed his hand across his eyes as if
seeking to evoke some elusive thought that hid in a
chamber of his mind.

By evening Marion's indisposition had passed.  She
supped with her uncle, finding a singular pleasure in
the society of the quiet, studious man who laid all his
concerns aside to talk to the 'little niece' on subjects
which he knew interested her: of his own travels,
and places over seas, and the chances of war abroad.
The ball and the events of the previous evening, which
had been faithfully detailed by his wife, he left out of
the conversation.  At the close of the meal, when
Marion went to the sitting-room where Simone was
awaiting her, Sir John explained that on the morrow
he would be obliged to leave her for a few days.
There was to be an inspection of the fleet, and he could
not absent himself.  Marion assured him that there
was no cause for regret.  Simone and Colonel Sampson
would companion her; there would be callers, and if
there were not, she would be glad of a little quiet.

The next day Sir John departed.  Scarcely had he
gone before Colonel Sampson's coach was at the door.
Marion and Simone descending, found him talking to
old Zacchary, who had come from the stables, and was
admiring the horses.  To Marion's great delight,
Colonel Sampson dismissed his footman to the society
of the kitchen for a spell, and bade Zacchary mount in
his place.  Marion knew that Zacchary was piling up a
store of reminiscences which would make him famous in
his generation when he returned to Garth.

Ranelagh was the destination that afternoon, and
Sampson saw to it that the drive was a pleasant one.
Sir John Fairfax had told him something of the subject
of Charity's letter, and the two men talked of the
impression they had had of Elise that first night when
Marion told the story of her father's ward.  In private
they were not disposed to take as easy a view of the
matter as my lady had entertained.  Sampson,
amazed at such behaviour on the part of a de Delauret,
had thought a good deal about it; both men could
appreciate better than Lady Fairfax the danger in
which the Roger, whom they had never seen, stood;
they knew better than she how the flame of the rising
still flickered.  But uppermost in Sampson's mind,
as Marion talked or was silent, in the coach, was the
thought of the young Elise d'Artois, whom he had
followed as a moth follows a lantern, for the space of
a delightful, foolish year.  He could not reconcile
his memory of her with the reported doings of her
daughter.

Simone also came in for a good share of his regard.
The Colonel was too trained a courtier to betray again
his surprise and mystification on seeing the little
waiting woman of whom he had heard so much.  During
the drive Simone was quiet, watching from the coach
the passers by; but towards the end something in the
conversation struck her fancy.  She suddenly turned
and smiled at Sampson.  A passing group caught
Marion's eye at the moment, and she called Simone's
attention thereto.  Thus neither of the girls saw the
man's start, and stare and nod, as if something in the
chamber of his memory had peeped out and greeted him.

When the party arrived at Kensington, Colonel
Sampson refused to accompany the ladies indoors.
He escorted them to the hall door, then walked quickly
back to his coach.  A minute later his horses, at a
canter, drew the vehicle out of the square.

In the hall a servant approached Marion.

'There is a man in the kitchen, mistress, a sailor
man from Garth, wishful to see you.  He is but
anchored at the Swan in Chelsey this afternoon, and
has walked across.  'Tis urgent business.'

Marion's eyes widened, as of old, as she looked at the
servant.  A sudden fear tore at her heart.  'Bring
him into the sitting-room at once,' she said.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHARITY'S LETTER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium bold

   CHARITY'S LETTER

.. vspace:: 2

Heavy footsteps sounded in the hall.  There
was a shuffling pause, and Bob Tregarthen stood
in the doorway in his rough seaman's clothes, his cap
in his awkward fingers.  The blue eyes looked at
Marion from under the tangled mane of fair hair in
the way she remembered so well, as if she had been a
spot on a distant sea.  It seemed that as the sailor
stood there, the village and harbour lay behind him,
and the smell of salt crept into the room.

'This is a great pleasure, Bob,' said Marion, as he
stumbled awkwardly forward.  'How is your mother?'

'Her's well and hearty,' said the sailor, his eyes in
shyness wandering about the room.  'Leastways
when I left her.  You'm looking uncommon well,
Mistress Marion.'  The far-sighted look came back to
rest on the lady.

'Sit down and tell me your news.  Have you come
from my father?'

There was no tremor in the clear voice as Marion
calmly seated herself in the high-backed oaken chair
that stood before the window.  Instinctively she was
keeping her face from the light.

'The Admiral ain't been down along for a fortnight
past, Mistress.  Folk say a be mighty busy, travelling
so, and now——'

Bob stopped short, and cautiously sat down on the
edge of the chair.  He cleared his throat and moved
his feet awkwardly about.  Presently his hand went
towards his pocket.  'I don't know as there be any
news, Mistress.  Leastways, what there be, Charity's
letter will be telling you.  'Tis some grand to see you
again, Mistress.'

Marion watched the fumbling hands, her own fingers
tightly interlocked.

'So Charity has writ me a letter,' came the even
tones.

'Ay, ay.  Her comes running down to the quay
just as Bill Scraggs were getting the water kegs aboard,
and her calls out to me to speak to me special, like,
and asks me how many days afore we sights the port
o' Lunnon.  And I ses to her, I ses, "Strike me if I
know," ses I.  "I bain't thinking o' Lunnon at all this
voyage.  A be for Gravesend and sharp back to
Plymouth; then at Plymouth us'll lie in the Cattwater,
so if ee wants to see me afore the month be out,"
ses I, "ee must come to Plymouth.  A bain't making
for the Pool this time, but with fair wind serving and
no Frenchies to tickle, us should make Gravesend in
three days."  Then her ses, quiet-like: "Wouldn't
ee like to speak to Mistress Marion, Bob?"  "Wouldn't
a?" ses I.  "Well," her ses, "here be a letter I've
writ for Mistress Marion, and I'd take it kindly if
you'd run up the river and call on her.  I be some
sore on her getting un, and I can trust ee better than
the post boys," her ses.  And the end of it was, her
showed me your name writ down large, and Kensington
Square, and her made me say un ower and ower.
'Tis a pretty maid, Charity,' added Bob, with a
reminiscent smile.  'Folk do say——'

'Have you got the letter, Bob?'

'Ay, ay, Mistress.  Here a be.'

Bob, whose hands had fallen idle as he talked, began
fumbling in his pocket again, and at length brought
out the creased missive.  He got awkwardly to his
feet.

'Here you be, Mistress.  And your pardon, but a
be in a mortal hurry to catch the tide, with Bill Scraggs
waiting in the boat down along to Chelsey Reach.
So good day to ee, Mistress, and I be some proud to
have seen you, and the place where you'm to.  You'm
looking fine, Mistress—grown taller, I do declare.
Bain't ee ever coming back to Garth?'

Marion's hold on her patience was fast weakening,
but seeing there would be no peace to read the letter
till the man was gone, she talked to him for a few
minutes, marvelling at the easy tone of her own speech.
'Is all well at Garth?' she asked hesitatingly at the
end.

'Ay, ay, Mistress—leastways——'

Divining that there was something Bob did not
wish to say, Marion stepped to the bell rope.  Then,
feeling in the pocket of her gown, she pulled out her
little silk purse.  'You have been very kind,' she
began.  Bob stepped back.

'Don't ee now, Mistress—don't ee now!' he implored,
his blue eyes resting with shy affection on her
face.  ''Tis a pleasure.'

'Good day, then, Bob,' said Marion, 'and thank
you very much indeed.  Take Master Tregarthen to
the gate,' she added, as the servant entered the room.
'You have of course offered him food and drink?'

'Ay, ay, Mistress,' put in Bob.  'Mutton pie
and mashed taties, and strawberry pudding—rare
good 'twas.  Good day to ee, Mistress, and God bless
ee,' added the sailor, as he gave the girl a last look,
and lumbered out.

Scarcely waiting for the door to close behind the
sailor Marion seized the letter, with trembling fingers
tore it open, and read it where she stood.  As her eyes
travelled down the crooked lines her face blanched.
She caught at a chair and unsteadily seated herself.
The letter finished, her hands fell on her lap.  Not a
sound escaped her lips.  The minutes ticked by from
her aunt's tall clock in a corner of the room.

Presently light footsteps sounded in the hall, and
Simone lifted the curtain.  Arrested by the stare of
the wide grey eyes she stood still for a moment.

'Mademoiselle,' she cried, and coming to her side,
sank on her knees and took the terribly still, cold hands
in her own.  'What is it?  You are ill!'

She sprang to her feet again, her hand towards the
bell rope.

'Stay!' whispered Marion.  'I am not ill.'

Simone's eyes wandered to the letter, lying where
Marion had laid it down.

'Give it to me,' said Marion.  Once more, word by
word, she deciphered the ill-written sheet; then,
handing it to Simone: 'Read it,' she said, and buried
her face in her hands.  Simone took up the letter.

.. vspace:: 2

'DEERE MISTRESS—Doe nott, i pray you, take ofence
that i doe writ you againe, having but writt you shortlie.
Mv hearte be that sore i must write, tho i doe scarce
knowe what i sett downe.  The Post boy from Bodmin
hath just visitted Garth where i had gone to speke with
Peter, none knoweing.

'A sore troubble hath fallen on us, deere mistress, and i
doe pray God you will returne soone, for if there be anny
help tis from you.  Master Roger hath been taken by the
Taunton soljers for haveing toled Master Hooper him
being in danger with Jeffreys men.  Master Hooper hath
fledde in safetie, somme say by boate from Porlock.  And
the post boy doe say deere Master Roger must stande in
his sted and belike—But that be maine sure idle talke but
i be that distrawte the post boy doe allsoe saye the talke
is a furrin younge ladie who did see the governoure at
Bodmin verrie secrettlie, and tolde him of Master Roger,
and the governoure's man who did heere at the doore did
talke haveing taken strong waters or else hee would nott
dare.  i pray God no harm fall to Master Roger but if he
shoulde hang that other shal nott live nor doe she desserve.
So may God helpe us al and doe deere mistress I pray thee
com home.

.. vspace:: 1

from CHARITY thes, moste dutifull.

.. vspace:: 1

'GARTH, *this tenth daye of July*.'

.. vspace:: 2

Simone laid the crumpled sheet on the table without
a word, and stood looking down at the bright bowed
head, a speechless sorrow in her face.  In the weeks
she had passed in Marion's company she had learned a
great deal about Garth, could see the inmates in a
picture gallery of her own imaginings: the Admiral,
the old Salt Eagle, whom she already loved; Roger
Trevannion, one, she was certain, to be wholly
trusted at sight; and, the sinister figure in the
group, her outlines filled in mainly by Marion's
silences, the Admiral's ward.  The quiet brown eyes
lightened with a sudden fury as she thought of Elise,
then sobered again to grief and fear as she looked at
the stricken form huddled in the chair.  There was
something terrifying in Marion's stillness and silence.

Kneeling down before her, Simone passed her arms
round Marion, and leaned her face against her shoulder.
All idea of fitness of manner due in a servant for the
moment left her mind.  Here was the only being she
loved in the world, wounded sorely.  She rubbed her
cheek up and down the passive arm.  Presently
Marion gave a shuddering sigh, and lifting her head,
looked into the faithful brown eyes searching her face.

'He is dead by now,' she said quietly.  'Dead.  Do
you hear me?'

The eyes took on again that set look, wandering
over Simone's head to the brightness of the garden.
Simone dropped her face down on to Marion's cold,
folded hands.  Her warm lips sought the fingers.
Marion leaned back in her chair.

'Dead.  'Tis all over.'

Still Simone made no reply.  She opened the lifeless
hands, and pressed her cheeks into the cup of the
palms.  Marion's head sank down again, the warm
russet hair touching the smooth brown.  A trembling
seized her.  Suddenly she sprang up, shaking her
hands free.

'Tell me,' she said as Simone faced her, 'do *you*
think he is dead?'

'I am quite sure he is not.'

Simone glanced hastily round the room.  There was
a decanter of wine on a side table.  Quickly she
poured out a glass, and gently forcing Marion into the
chair, held the glass to her lips.  With her eyes on
Simone's face, Marion drank a few drops, then pushed
the wine away.

Simone took up her position on the rug again, and
holding the girl's hand, looked into the fixed grey eyes
that were watching her.

'Listen,' she said.  'He is not dead.  There is not
time.'

'Not time?'  Marion tried to shake off the stupor into
which she had fallen.  She pressed her hands to her face.

'No—there is not time,' continued Simone.  'It is
but a few days.  Charity wrote on Saturday.  To-day
is Wednesday.  And also, they would not dare.'

'Not dare?'

'Because of your father.  Roger is in the bounds
of his magistracy, is he not?'

The drops of wine had eased a little the grip of the
shock upon the girl.  Simone rose, and held the glass
again, but Marion shook her head.

'In a few minutes you will be able to think,' said
Simone quietly.  'Then you will know I am right.'

Silence fell on the room as Simone stood beside the
chair, watching the set look slowly disappear from the
face, the eyes lose their hard stare.

When Marion spoke again her voice was trembling,
but the tones were her own.

'Sit down, Simone, and let us think.  You see what
Charity says.'

'Charity has written in a panic,' said Simone softly.
'But I like her greatly, that simple, loving soul.  What
are the facts, now?  Master Roger has heard that
some one—his friend?—' Marion nodded, 'was in
danger of arrest, and he has warned him.  I do not
know just what an offence in the law that may mean.
Sir John will say when he returns.  And Master
Roger——'

Marion flamed up in sudden anger, a bright colour
flooding her face.  'Such folly!' she cried.  'Roger
was ever a fool!  I can't think why folk do not mind
their own affairs.  He must have known 'twas
dangerous.  Think of his mother!  Arrant
wickedness, I call it.'

Simone smiled faintly as the storm swept her by.  Any
outburst was more welcome than silence and stillness.

'Ma belle dame,' she said, her eyes warm, 'you
had wrought just such a service yourself, had you
been there.'

Marion passed the speech by.  'And my father
is down at Truro, on Jeffreys' affairs, doubtless.  Oh,
that Protestant duke whom they hailed as a hero and
a saviour!  Would to God he had never been born!
I was saying to my aunt the night of the ball, you
people here have not the slightest idea of the horrors
of that time, when my Lord Jeffreys was in the
West.'  Marion detailed a few of the happenings.  'Now after
that,' she concluded, 'can you wonder I fear for
Roger?'

'That tempest is over,' said Simone.  ''Tis but the
growl of the dying thunder now.  Dear Mademoiselle,
believe me, you have caught a panic from Charity's
own state when she wrote that letter, she having
doubtless just heard, and saying what people had told
her.  Something can be done.  We must think.
May I be forgiven if I order some tea, Mademoiselle?'

Marion nodded absently, and going to the window,
set the casement wide, and leaned her arms on the sill.

A little later the servant entered with the tea.
Setting a chair by the fire, and taking one of the bowls
in her fingers, Simone gently touched her mistress's
arm.

'Where is yours?' asked Marion.

Simone's little mouth made a slight moue.  'Je ne
l'aime pas, Mademoiselle.  But there is some milk.
I will drink that, with your permission.'

Presently Marion set down her bowl, and turned to
her companion.

'I am going home,' she said abruptly.  'Will you
accompany me?'

The brown eyes glowed.  'I ask no greater pleasure,
Mademoiselle.  But how?  What of Madame your
aunt?'

'I will write a letter, telling her.  But I may not
wait for her permission.  Unfortunately, too, my
uncle is away, and I know not his direction.  What
can we do?'

'Mademoiselle cannot travel without an escort.'

'There is Colonel Sampson.'

'True.  Le bon Colonel.  I had not thought of him.'

'I will write him at once,' said Marion.  'Will you
bring me paper and pen?'

Within a few minutes a manservant was dispatched
to Colonel Sampson's house in Lincoln's Inn Fields,
bearing a short note from Marion to the effect that she
wished to see him on a subject of great urgency.
Marion bade the man take the fastest horse and ride
hard; then sent word to the housekeeper that Colonel
Sampson would in all probability be a guest at supper,
and asked that a bottle of the Colonel's favourite
Burgundy should not be overlooked.

This done, Marion mounted to her own room, and
threw herself feverishly into preparations for the
journey.  She found great relief in merely busying
her hands among her clothes.  And though she did and
undid, set her dresses here and set them there, declared
this should go in that trunk, and then in another,
Simone made no objection to her contrary ways.
Quietly the waiting woman followed her orders,
knowing that she could very well pack Mademoiselle's
clothes properly while the young lady was asleep.

Presently Simone insisted that it was high time for
Mademoiselle to dress for supper.  The toilet took
some time, and Simone talked with animation of the
days of travel that lay ahead, knowing that a person's
mind cannot dwell at the same time on the end and on
the means.  Marion told her what she remembered
of the course of the ten days' journey from Garth to
London, adding that with swifter going they could
surely vie with the post chaise and reach home in seven.

Just as Marion's gown was fastened, a servant
tapped at the door.  The messenger was returned,
saying that Colonel Sampson's man had informed him
of his master's having ridden away on a sudden visit
to his country house in Hertfordshire, and was not to
be expected home till the following evening, if then:
there was no knowing when he would return.  But
as soon as he entered the house, the letter should be
handed to him.

The servant withdrew, and having noted the disarray
of the room went downstairs to report thereon,
saying that all ladies were alike, and here Mistress
Marion was driving yonder Simone to death, on a
round of doing and undoing among her dresses; and
'twas a good thing Mrs. Martin was away with my lady,
or the work might have fallen on her.

Meanwhile Marion stood looking at Simone, her
mouth stubborn.

'I shall not wait for Colonel Sampson,' she said
quietly.  'That would mean another two days at
least.  Get me the ink and paper.  And bid the man
not to unsaddle his horse.  Go down yourself, will
you?  I like not that the domestics should come up
here just now.  Nothing shall be said of the journey
till our plans are ready.  Above all, nothing must come
to Zacchary's ears.  If Zacchary thinks I am taking
an unwarranted step, he will be hard to move, harder
than the four greys and the coach.  Tell the man to
wait at the door, and I will descend.'

'Bien, Mademoiselle.'

Realising that a new phase of her mistress's character
was asserting itself, Simone went below.  Presently
Marion came downstairs with a note in her hand.
The manservant was standing in the drive, bridle in
hand; Marion went out at the door and down the steps.

'Reuben,' she said, 'you will go at once to St. James's
and find where Captain Beckenham is.  His
orderly will know.  If he be on duty at the Palace,
find some means of reaching him.  Here is money.
If he be supping with friends, learn where is the house.
Do not return until you have delivered the letter.
The matter is urgent.'

Reuben took the note, touched his cap, and leaping
into the saddle, cantered out into the square, a smile
of pure pleasure on his face.  Here was the twofold
excitement of the prospect of hunting among pleasure
haunts for my young gentleman, and the delight of
serving a fair lady who wished to see her gallant
admirer.  Reuben was young, and a bachelor.

Marion supped with Simone for company, and dismissing
the servants after the meat was brought, sat
silent, eating a morsel here and there as her random
thoughts came back to the present.  Had Mistress
Keziah seen her expression as she sat at the head of
her aunt's table that night, she would have remembered
her own thoughts of the girl months before.  'She'll
go her own way; her mother has given her that
sweetness, but she's a Penrock.'  Simone, watching her
unobtrusively, attending to her needs with the perfect
tact natural to her, was content that the face should
wear that look.  Better the girl should play the part
of a mimic general marshalling a toy army, than sink
into tears before an imagined grief.  As she noticed the
absorbed quiet of the steady features, Simone suddenly
found herself wondering what Marion would be like
when her tranquillity was swept away in stormy
action, when that something sleeping in her was fully
roused.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE ESCORT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE ESCORT

.. vspace:: 2

Reuben had not been page boy and footman to
my Lady Fairfax for nothing.  Standing on
the step of her coach he had learned the roads and
houses of Kensington, Chelsey, and the City; carrying
my lady's cushion to the theatre, waiting outside her
box, and hearing the talk of courtiers in between the
acts, he had gained some insight into the world of
fashion.  Thus there was no need for Marion to detail
instruction about the course he must take in hunting
down the gentleman of the sword.  Exactly two hours
after starting, having visited St. James's and two
theatres in vain, drawn the coffee houses blank, he
finally ran his quarry to earth outside a cockpit
in Covent Garden, where several gentlemen were
discussing the rival merits of the birds.

'And my lord Duke,' Beckenham was saying,
'having lost £500 on Firebrand——'  He broke off as
Reuben elbowed his way into the group and stood hat
in hand.  'What may you want, my lad?'

Reuben spoke in a low tone and delivered his letter.
Captain Beckenham was delighted at the summons,
but he gave his companions no hint of this.  'Lend
me your horse, Grammont,' said he to one of the group.
'Here's a business that will not wait.'

'Zounds! and what may be this mighty hurry?'

'*Service du roi*,' replied Beckenham gravely.
Grammont, recognising the Fairfax livery, whistled
for his servant to lead up the horse.

'Give His Majesty my ardent remembrances,' he
said with a smile, as Beckenham sprang into the saddle.
'Lucky dog!  I say, Beckenham,' as the other rode
off, 'as you are bound for Tunbridge to-morrow, say
a word for poor Tom Grammont!'

Mr. Beckenham's reply was lost in the dusk as he
spurred after Reuben.  The captain had been one of
those who had suffered most from Marion's friendly
ridicule on the evening of the ball, and his affections
being in the nature of a flower that closes when
clouds overtake the sun, he had decided that the
'little niece' was not the marvel that society
proclaimed her to be.  Beckenham was a man whose
sterling qualities were undeniable; he was known in the
regiment for a brave and loyal soldier; but he had been
courted and flattered by the women of his acquaintance
and looked on with too much favour by mothers of
daughters whose marriages were not yet arranged.
With somewhat changed ideas Beckenham now rode
to Kensington and presently found himself in the
presence of young Mistress Penrock.

Marion, a trifle graver than was her wont, extended
her fingers to the gentleman's low bow, and begging
him to be seated, in a few words explained the nature
of her wishes.  Grave news from the west had
determined her immediate return to Cornwall;
she prayed the kindness of Captain Beckenham's
escort.

The young soldier's surprise was clear in his face as
the nature of Marion's wish was revealed, and Marion
stiffened herself for another battle.  She had just
dismissed Zacchary after an hour's wordy warfare that
had left her desperate and weary; nothing but the
sound of tears in her voice and her declaration that she
would go by the public stage coach had made honest
Zacchary see that there was nothing for it but to fall
in with the outrageous plan.  Like Beckenham, he
thought more of the perils of the way than did the
young lady herself.

'I should not have dreamed of troubling you,
Captain Beckenham,' finished Marion, 'but my
uncle is away on a private expedition, and our good
friend, Colonel Sampson, is in the country.  Failing
these two, I have called upon yourself.'

The gentleman rose and paid the friendliness of the
last sentence the honour of his lowest bow.  When
he reseated himself his face was troubled.  His usual
flattering speech failed him; he went straight to the
point, not hiding his regret and anxiety.

'In the first case, Mistress Penrock, and to my
infinite sorrow, I fear it is impossible for me to
accompany you.  I am in Her Majesty's suite, and should
have been at Tunbridge this day but for an affair of
the regiment for which Her Majesty gave me a day's
absence.  In the second—your pardon—but is it wise,
this project of yours?'

Marion gave no sign of the dismay she felt as
Beckenham explained his position; when he offered
his criticism of her plan her eyes flashed.  She rose.

'As you are in Her Majesty's service, sir, there is
nothing more to be said, except to thank you for your
kindness in coming to the house.'

Beckenham bowed.

'Forgive me,' he said, something of the look his
messmates knew coming into his eyes.  'There is
something to be said.  It would be an ill reward to the
friendship with which Lady Fairfax has always
favoured me if I failed her at this point.'

'Failed her, sir?'

'Failed her, madam.  Lady Fairfax is away, her
husband is away, Colonel Sampson is away.  For
the moment you are unprotected.  I would not let my
sister or my mother travel so far without suitable
escort.  Shall I allow a lady whom I would honour
as I do either, to set out on such a dangerous
road?  I must offer a very humble but very real
protest, Mistress Marion.  May not the matter wait?'

'It may not wait.'

Marion sat down again, her anger undone by the
manner of Beckenham's speech.  The two were silent
awhile, the gentleman watching his companion, who
was toying with the lid of her aunt's sweetmeat box,
her thoughts already running ahead to the problem
as to which of the Fairfax servants she would choose to
take Beckenham's place.

'Is your mind fully made up, Mistress Marion?'
asked the soldier, his face still troubled.

Marion's grey eyes met his own with what was
known by her aunt as the Penrock look.

'I am setting out for Garth to-morrow, with or
without escort.  That is quite decided.  Look on it
as a fact, Captain Beckenham,' she added with a
fleeting smile, 'and not as a proposition.'

The young man watched the mouth droop at the
corners again.

'I will come,' he said suddenly.  ''Twill mean
disgr——'  He stopped short.

Marion gave him an indulgent glance.  'I would
not allow my brother or my father to imperil an
already tender reputation, sir,'—she smiled
again—'by disobeying royal commands.  The same protecting
watchfulness I must apply to yourself.  To withhold
it would be an ill return for the services you have
rendered my aunt.  Take that as final, like the fact
of my going.'  The gentle tone of her voice and the
raillery of her smile eased the straightness of her
speech.

'How she has suddenly become grown-up,' mused
Beckenham, for once tongue-tied.  ''Tis not the
same frightened child I found in the coach that first
night.  What a villainous ill fortune that I should be
thus tied to Her Majesty's apron!'  Then striving
to put the personal part of the question out of his
mind, he bent his thoughts to the problem of the lady's
service.  'I have it!'  He jumped up, speaking with
a boyish eagerness that stood him better in Marion's
favour than all his courtly airs.  'There's my servant,
Tony.  May I not lend you my servant, Mistress
Marion?  He's a brave lad and a tough soldier—worth
three others, any day, though I myself say it.'

Marion felt a relief she did not show.

'If the servant be like his master, Captain
Beckenham,' she said demurely, 'I am sure he will be
worth—three, did you say?—or was it four?'

Beckenham laughed outright, then sobered again.
'There's Grammont, too,' he said.  'I had forgotten
him.'

'Lord Grammont?  No, sir.  I do not like Lord
Grammont,' said Marion bluntly.

Mr. Beckenham's head swam a little, but he made
no comment on the obvious comparison.  'Grammont's
a good fellow,' was his reply.

'There's another thing,' said Marion suddenly, a
vague notion in the back of her mind asserting itself.
'I want your promise that you will keep this affair
private.'

Beckenham felt a slight shock and his face sobered.
'Forgive me,' he said, 'but Lady Fairfax——'

'You will make an excellent grandfather in time.
Captain Beckenham.  'Twere a pity to hasten the day.
Of course I shall write to tell my aunt and also Colonel
Sampson, and leave a note for my uncle.  Could
anything be more open?  I meant that you should
keep this matter private from the Lord Grammonts
of your acquaintance.  It concerns myself alone.'

'I will promise not to say a word, Mistress Marion,'
said Beckenham after a minute's thought, 'if you will
on the other hand promise me to take Reuben as well.
I myself will accompany you as far as Hounslow, and
then strike across country.  I shall feel more
comfortable once you are past the Heath.  But Reuben
is a youth of parts.  He is quick of thought, has all
his five senses in excellent working order; whereas
my good Tony is apt to rely too much upon his sword.
With those two, and the excellent Zacchary, who is a
stalwart fellow, for an escort, I should feel more at
ease when I am called on to report this affair to my
Lady Fairfax.  Even then, 'twill be an ordeal,' he
added with a comical air.

'Fear not,' smiled Marion.  'I will make your case
plain enough for my aunt's full forgiveness.  'Tis I
who will have to meet her anger, some time, but not
yourself.'

Beckenham shook his head.  'A man who has the
honour of being a friend has nevertheless a certain
responsibility.'

'I think I will take Reuben, if he will come,' said
Marion, her spirits rising as the difficulties fell away.
'If he will come!  Is there a youth in London who
would not covet the privilege more than
all——'  Beckenham stopped short as he met Marion's look.

For a few minutes more the two talked of the journey.
Then Marion rose, saying how very busied she must
be in the short time left, and thanked the soldier for
his kindness.

'I trust,' said Captain Beckenham, 'that you may
find your trouble—your errand that causes this
urgency—not so great as you may think when you reach your
journey's end.'

Marion started and her eyelids drooped.  Then
she held out her hand, and the eager words Beckenham
had to say concerning his sorrow at her departure
from Kensington froze before the distant, sorrowful
look in her eyes.  He lifted the fingers to his lips and
turned on his heel.  At the door he paused.  Marion
was looking in his direction, but her gaze was on
something remote.  The young man bowed again in
silence; Marion, recollecting herself as the servant
appeared, dropped a low curtsey and bade Captain
Beckenham a very good evening.

With heavy steps she mounted to her bedroom.  In
the adjoining chamber Simone was busy with the
travelling boxes.  The door between the two rooms
was ajar, and Simone, seeing her young mistress enter,
ran forward and stood mutely waiting.  Marion went
to the open window and leaned her head wearily
on the casement.  The song of a nightingale in the
lanes beyond Kensington village came to her ears.

'Listen,' said Marion, as Simone stole up to her
side, 'listen to yonder bird.  How can he sing so?
There is no sorrow in the world for him!'

'Nay, Mademoiselle, 'tis sorrow tunes his song, you
forget.  But, Mademoiselle——'

'Yes?'

'Pardon, but I should so like to know——'

''Tis well.  Captain Beckenham cannot come, but
he is lending his servant, and I have also promised to
take Reuben.'

Marion roused herself and went across to her writing
table, glancing into the adjoining room as she passed
the door.

'All packed?  Good.  You have done bravely,
Simone.  Now I must write to my aunt and uncle,
and Colonel Sampson.'

Simone still lingered.  'Mademoiselle——'

'What is it?'

'I have been thinking about——'

A knock at the door interrupted her.  'Come in,'
called Marion, bending over her paper.  A subdued
exclamation from Simone made Marion turn her head.
Zacchary and Reuben stood together in the doorway.
Reuben was stepping forward, but Zacchary caught
his sleeve.

''Tain't but me, Mistress Marion,' began Zacchary,
his free hand touching his forehead.  'There bain't
no gainsaying this 'ere young man.  Her's some set
on travelling wi' we to-morrow.'

'By your leave, Madam,' said the Cockney youth,
'it would give me the greatest pleasure.'

'A did say,' put in Zacchary, with a sidelong withering
look at the man who borrowed the speeches of the
great, 'a did say as 'tweren't no use nohow.  Stands
to reason a Lunnon man knows nothing o' country
going.  But if you'm so minded, Mistress, as to allow
un, a might serve to hold the horses' heads—'lowing
her knows head from tail—ony roads her'll run
back fast enough when the highwaymen start on we.'

'Zacchary, Zacchary!' said Marion.  'And 'twas
yourself told me of Reuben's valiant fight with
footpad at Knightsbridge yonder, two years ago.'

'A don't deny as a be a fule sometimes,' said
Zacchary meditatively, scratching his head, 'but it
bain't the same——'

'I'm busy now,' interrupted Marion.  'Take
Reuben downstairs and tell him as much as you can
of the journey up to prepare him for the journey down.
I shall be very glad of your company, Reuben.  You
may ride on the coach seat with Zacchary.  Are your
carbines ready, Zacchary?'

'Ay, Mistress, but a were saying——'

'And plenty of shot?'

'Us 'as enough shot to fight the battle o' Sedgemoor
all over again,' declared the Cornishman.

'Then 'tis highly likely you won't pull the trigger
once, Zacchary.  But, Reuben, you need not fear these
tales.  The roads have been quieter, I think, since the
coming and going of the King's men these months.
My father and I came up to Kensington without being
murdered on the coach steps.  And, in any case,
Captain Beckenham's servant is coming as outrider.
From what I hear,' added Marion, 'he shoots three
men at once.'

'Presarve 's!' said Zacchary.  'Like as not her'll
shoot we, Mistress.'

Marion took up her quill.  'Be ready to start at
eight o'clock,' she said briefly.

'Can't think what have come to the little maid,'
mused Zacchary, as he lumbered downstairs in the
wake of the delighted Reuben.  'Her's growing more
like the Admur'l every day.'

Meanwhile Simone waited, sadly noting how soon
the grave expression had overrun the smile with which
her young mistress had talked to Zacchary.

'You had something to say, Simone?'

'Mademoiselle, have you thought about money?'

Marion laid down her pen again with an exclamation
of dismay.  'I had quite forgotten money!'

'I had been wondering.  You'll want a good deal,
Mademoiselle.'

Marion counted out her purse.  'And there are two
guineas in my jewel box.'

'Madame Romaine has the little money I have
saved,' remarked Simone.  'I never thought of asking
her for it.  But it is very little.'

'It is kind of you to think of that, Simone.  What
can I do?  Oh, if only Colonel Sampson had not gone
away on that sudden journey!  What can I do?'

'Mademoiselle,' said Simone after, a pause, 'when
ladies find themselves in need of money, they generally
borrow on their jewellery.'

With her forehead resting on her hand Marion
thought awhile.

'There is no other way that I can see,' she said in a
low tone, 'and she would not mind.  We shall have to
sell the pearl necklace, Simone.'

'There is no need to sell, Mademoiselle,' explained
Simone.  'The goldsmith will lend you the money,
and you can leave it with him and get it again later.'

'But,' said Marion in dismay, a new thought striking
her, 'that means delay.  What is the hour now?'

'Close on ten o'clock, Mademoiselle.  Impossible,
of course, to-night.  But if Mademoiselle will trust me,
I will go up to Lombard Street to-morrow morning,
and seek a man I know of there.'

'How will you go?'

'My lady left the small coach, and there are plenty
of horses.  I will be back with the money by the time
Mademoiselle is ready.'

Marion turned with a sigh to her letter.  'Be sure
to take a servant with you in the coach.  I cannot
think what I should do without you, Simone.'

Simone dropped on one knee, and laid her cheek
against Marion's idle hand.  'Je ne cherche aucun
plaisir que de vous servir, Mademoiselle.'

'Tais-toi!' said Marion huskily, her fingers touching
the glossy head.  'I have not time to weep.'

With her mouth in set lines, Marion wrote her letters.
When they were directed and sealed, she found Simone
waiting to undress her.  Her jewel box, a present from
Lady Fairfax, was by the bed.  Marion took from it
the case containing the pearl and turquoise necklace,
and handing it to Simone, dismissed her for the night.

She sank on her knees by the high, canopied bed.
'Our Father,' began the tremulous whisper.  Then
the golden brown head fell on the coverlet.  'O
Roger, Roger!' she sobbed.





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.. _`A HALT ON THE ROAD`:

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   CHAPTER XIV


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   A HALT ON THE ROAD

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Marion sat in the corner of the coach,
wondering why the roads had become so much more
uneven, the vehicle itself so comfortless, the sturdy
greys so slow seeming, since she had travelled that same
course with her father not more than two months ago.
And she had not the consolation that pleasanter riding
lay ahead; ruefully she thought of the waggon tracks
of the west country, compared with which the narrow
lanes, deeply rutted, through which the coach now
rocked and jolted, made easy going.

On the first day, after Beckenham had left the party,
and the coach had settled down to a steady pace, the
sense of slowness had been intolerable to the girl.  Her
fear and dread sped backwards and forwards between
Roger in his gaol and herself crawling snailwise over
the intervening space, and taunted her with her
helplessness.  The enforced inaction left her a prey to
mental maladies that otherwise she would have shaken
off.  Moody and irritable, she had words for none.

At the outset, she had been forced to recognise one
drag on her speed: she dare not press the greys
beyond their strength, nor dare she leave them at some
posting-house and take fresh horses for the succeeding
stages of the journey.  That she risked her father's
displeasure in any case, in returning thus, she was
certain.  She saw her position from his point of view:
merely because she could not bear to stay behind,
she had come home; but that was no reason why she
should ruin the horses.  Therefore it was needless for
Zacchary to preach rest and caution.  At the inn
where they stopped for the night, Marion saw to it that
the weight of her purse and the new-born authority
of her manner ensured the best stabling and food the
house afforded.  She had done all she could.
Everything now depended on the coach and the animals.
But in the meantime only some few hours had passed
since she left London, and long days lay ahead during
which she must perforce sit idle.

The morrow found her in the same gloomy condition,
her desperate fancy dwelling on each coming stage
of the interminable road.  One day pressed on to
another without any incident to ease her unhappy
mood.  Slowly the sun rose, and slowly sank to rest;
the young moon over her casement mocked her restless
sleep; and for Marion the incomparable beauty of the
green summer turned into the spite of prison walls.

Simone, unobtrusively watching her young mistress,
began to be concerned for her state, and would have
almost welcomed an accident, a stray highwayman, if
only the face in the corner would lose its set look.

But so far no such ill hap had occurred.  Travelling
only by daylight, and so well guarded, and, as the men
on the box averred, protected by a special fate, the
coach had gone on its way unmolested.  Tony the
valiant, as Simone had dubbed him, was indeed worth
the three men of his master's boast, and his splendid
horsemanship and elegant livery had called for no few
admiring glances from the farm lads and rosy-cheeked
wenches who stood at times to watch the coach and
its outrider go by.  The travellers had done almost
half the journey before Simone found out that while
Zacchary and Reuben slept in a hayloft above the
horses' stalls, Tony chose for his bed the boards of the
landing outside the ladies' bedchamber.  Simone
herself, water jug in hand, had come suddenly upon
this unexpected barricade one morning when Master
Tony had overslept himself.  She had all but fallen
headlong over the prostrate body, and her exclamation
finding its way into his dreams, the young man
had become aware of a slippered foot within reach of his
hand.  At once his fingers closed on the foot, while he
wriggled into a position that would enable him to see
who was daring to pass so close to the door behind which
his fair charges were sleeping.  Scarcely had he
brought his drowsy eyes to rest on Simone's dainty face
before the few drops of water left in the ewer trickled on
to his own.  Her foot released, Simone stood back with
a smile.  'So 'tis thyself who snores so loudly that my
mistress and I have feared our walls were but thin
boards!  Snore on, valiant warrior,' said Simone over
her shoulder, as she went along the passage.  'Henceforth
the sound of thy slumbers shall be music to our ears.'

In the late afternoon of the fourth day the coach
was making a rather slow progress along the Ilminster
Road.  Zacchary had discovered, or imagined, as
Marion asserted, a slight lameness in the inside leader.
Nothing would induce him to hurry his pace, and
Marion had been obliged to bow to his will.

To Simone's unbounded relief, Marion's attack of
depression had worn itself out.  The consciousness
that in a few more days, granted no ill fortune, she
would cross the boundary into Cornwall, lent an added
buoyancy to her reacting mood.

The sound of the broad Dorset speech, which had
induced a home-coming sensation in Marion, had greatly
diverted Simone.  Marion, giving her a lesson in west
country dialect, did not notice the narrow lane, deep
ditched at one side, into which they had passed, and was
unaware of any danger until, with a sickening heave, the
coach slanted down into the hollow, and rested there.

'Bide where you be, Mistress,' came Zacchary's
call.  'Us'll shift un all right!'

For a few seconds the men struggled at the horses'
heads, the Cornishman's cries to the struggling greys
running into a high falsetto and an affectionate reviling
that made even Marion smile.

''Tis nothing,' she said to Simone, as the two
balanced themselves against the list of the coach floor.
'We toppled into a ditch coming down, and were soon
on the road again.  Zacchary must have been careless
for once.  There!  'Twas a splendid pull.  Ah—stay!
What was that?'

The coach, almost balanced, had fallen back slanting-wise,
and with the movement had come the sound of a
snap, and a struggling of horses' feet.  The voices of
the men ceased.

'Something has happened,' said Marion, 'and I
can't open this villainous door!  Reuben!' she called.

The footman was already climbing on to the coach
step, which appeared to be poised in mid-air, and in a
moment the two girls were lifted to the ground.

Zacchary was bending over a broken trace.

'Oh!' said Marion in a relieved tone, 'I thought the
pole had gone.'

Zacchary's mouth twisted under his beard.  'My
lady would sing a different song by and by, when she
saw the time it would take to mend the break.'

'You have all your tools, have you not?' asked
Marion.

Zacchary straightened himself.  'There bean't nawt
in yonder box at all, Mistress.  A wor that struck at
the sudden hurry of coming away a' clean forgot.'

Marion stood in silent dismay.

Meanwhile, Tony had been scouting ahead, and now
trotted down the lane with the news that a likely inn
was perched in a hollow over the next hill.

'Didst see aught of a cobbler's bench perched by
un?' demanded Zacchary, his wrath rising.  'Streak
off now, tha girt gawk!  And if thou should light on a
few sheep up over—and us allows tha'll be some
scared—there bean't no call to trot back to tell the
Mistress.  A body would ha' thought—but thy head's
too full o' Lunnon impidence for aught else.'

Not waiting to hear the end of the speech, Tony
wheeled round.

'Will it take long to mend it, Zacchary?' inquired
Marion.

'Maybe, maybe.  'Tis a bad split.  Easy, now
there,' called Zacchary, watching Reuben freeing
the wheelers.  'So.  Let un graze quiet-like.'

Marion sighed.  'Do your best, Zacchary,' she said
gently.  'We will walk on a bit, and wait at the inn
till you come.'

After a short walk between the steep flower-grown
hedges, the two reached the little hostelry which Tony
had espied from the crest of the hill.  A smiling,
rosy-cheeked innkeeper, with a smiling, rosy-cheeked wife
at his side, stood on the steps as the two came up, their
approach having been noted from the kitchen windows.
The woman smoothed her apron and dropped a series
of curtseys as her husband greeted the travellers.

'Thank you,' said Marion.  'We should like to wait
awhile, but 'twould be more pleasure to walk about
in the garden yonder than to sit indoors.  We have
had over much sitting in the coach these days past.
But,' she added, rather anxiously, 'did not our man
come up to ask for an awl and some leather for mending
the trace?'

'He has but now gone up over, Madam,' said the
innkeeper.  'The cobbler's cottage is that you see
yonder, next the blacksmith's.'

As he spoke, the man pointed out the few dwellings
of a tiny hamlet across the fields.

'If you would see that the cobbler comes himself,'
began Marion:—then she broke off, smiling.  'Tony
is indeed worth three men,' she said to Simone.  'See
yonder where he comes with the cobbler riding behind.'

'A don't allow but that his horse be tired some,'
remarked the innkeeper as, in a few minutes, Tony's
chestnut went by at a canter with her double burden.
'Would it not be best to lie here and go on to-morrow?'

Here the wife chimed in.  'There be a dish o' trout
from the brook, caught this morning, a fine ham up
the chimney ready for cutting, Mistress, and sheep's
kidneys, and a venison pasty, and a good fat fowl
hanging yonder.  Killed yesterday, 'twas.'

Marion shook her head.  'We want to get to
Ilminster to-night.'

'Ilminster!  For pity's sake, Mistress, think of the
horses!' cried the innkeeper.  'But in any case, wife,
get the ladies a pot of cider.'

For close on an hour Marion and Simone walked in
the garden and to and fro along the lane, waiting for
the rest of the party to reappear.  Towards the end
of the time Marion fell silent, and Simone forbore to
draw her into conversation.  At length the sound of
horses was heard, and with an impatient word Marion
turned to greet the laggards; but the word died on her
lips, and she stared in dismay as the coach came up
the lane, drawn by the wheelers only, Reuben
following with the leaders at the rear of the vehicle.

'There bean't nothing amiss, Mistress Marion,' said
Zacchary as the coach came to a standstill in front of
the inn.  'Us have mended the trace all right, but you
must see, with Jennifer falling lame, it be wellnigh
impossible to reach Ilminster to-night.  In any case the
horses be weary.  Cobbler tells me there bean't near
so good stabling this side Exeter as to this here inn.  I
vote we stay, Mistress, and get on the road at sunrise.'

There was a doggedness in Zacchary's voice that
Marion remembered from her childhood's days.  It
was no good arguing the matter when Zacchary spoke
in that tone.

'Very well,' said Marion.  She turned to go into the
garden again, and Simone went to the well of the coach
to find her mistress's box that had been set apart for
necessities of travel.

'Then my lady will stay?' cried the innkeeper's
wife.  'Supper shall be ready in a very short time.'

Her husband, meanwhile, was looking along the road
to the west.  In the bustle of stabling the greys no
one had noticed another rider coming in from the
Ilminster direction.  The landlord listened intently
for a minute, then his rosy face broadened into a still
wider smile.

'Here be another for supper and bed, an I mistake
not,' he called to his wife.  'Yonder roan hath cast a
shoe.'

From inside the garden, which ran westward of the
inn, Marion looked curiously for the arrival of another
victim of the hazards of the road.  Presently the
roan trotted up, and the rider dismounted.  He was
a lean, spare young man, and from his garments and
manner of speech as he greeted the innkeeper, Marion
vaguely classed him as a lawyer's clerk.

'You have ridden hard, sir,' the innkeeper was
saying.  'And a finer brute I never saw.'

Mine host had evidently no suspicion that Marion
was within earshot; precisely the same approval he
had cast on her greys.

'I ride on a hard errand, my good man,' said the
new comer in a slightly pompous tone.  'Is there a
smith hereabouts?'

The landlord indicated the cottages across the green.
'My boy shall take your horse, sir,' he said, 'and
supper will be on the table presently.  We have youth
and beauty for our guests to-night, sir.'

'Aha!' said the stranger, squaring his shoulders and
pulling his moustache—'and who may——?'

With a smile, Marion moved out of earshot.

Presently Zacchary came hesitatingly into the
garden.  Having won his point so easily, he was wishful
for a word of peace with his lady.  ''Twas for the
best,' he said, his old eyes looking into the clear grey
ones.

'I know it, Zacchary,' said Marion gently.  'Are
the horses all right?  What of Jennifer?'

Zacchary nodded.  'Jennifer will be all right
to-morrow.  Yonder Tony be a power o' help.  A don't
allow but her be as handy a man with the brutes as
ever a clapped eyes on.  Beats me how her knows such
a terr'ble lot about horses, and Lunnon-born and
bred.'  The old groom moved a step nearer.  'Yonder
be a Devon man now come,' he pursued, his voice
dropping.  'Do 'ee look out for your purse, Mistress.'

'Zacchary!  I am truly ashamed of you!'

Zacchary looked stolidly at his mistress.  'Like as
not a rogue,' he insisted.  'A don't niver trust they
Devon ikes.  I should be main surprised if her haven't
robbed somebody already, being that careful with the
saddlebags and all.'

'I don't suppose his saddlebags contain anything
more than a bundle of documents,' said Marion.
'You're as bad as old Mother Borlase, Zacchary.'

'And the man was that solemn and grand,' went on
Zacchary, 'a body might a took un for Governor of
Bodmin, no less.'

'Go and get your supper.  And don't be such a
quarrelsome wretch.  The man is very well.'

Marion followed Zacchary indoors and was escorted
by the innkeeper's wife to the best bedroom, where
Simone had laid out a change of dress for her mistress.

'I feel mightily inclined for a quiet meal,' remarked
Marion as the last deft touches were put to her hair and
gown.  'And perhaps I may get one if you will show
the same kindness that you showed in entertaining
Captain Beckenham on my behalf that first day.'

A slight spot of colour showed on Simone's cheeks.

'À votre service, Mademoiselle,' she said in a rather
constrained voice.

Marion glanced at her curiously in the mirror.
'He was certainly very gallant and delightful,' she
went on.  'No one can be more so than Captain
Beckenham.  Yonder man downstairs is of a different
order, though.  Still, I have no fear your fine steel
will fail in meeting his heavy blade.'

As Marion spoke a kitchen-maid knocked at the
door to announce supper, and the two went down into
the little dining-room.  Mine host, all smiles and
delight, stood within the doorway.  He was one of
those innkeepers who made travelling a pleasure;
the comfort and happiness of his guests and not his
own gain seemed to be his one consideration.  By the
window stood the newcomer.  He turned as the ladies
entered.  From the amount of self-importance he
contrived to put into his greeting Marion understood
at once Zacchary's hostile feeling.

With the slightest lift of her eyebrows Simone
followed her mistress to the place allotted and sat
down.  After acknowledging the stranger's bow with
a cold salutation, Marion turned her attention to the
innkeeper and then to her supper.  Her sense of
weariness and lurking anxiety was weighing on her
spirits.  Nothing but the eager face of her host as he
hovered by her chair, pressing dish after dish for her
acceptance, would have made her break the silence
that, in her present mood, was the only comfort
possible.

Meanwhile the stranger had turned his attention to
Simone, and presently, as the good cheer of food and
wine stole over Marion's senses, easing a little her
mental strain, she became aware that a very fine play
was going on across the table.  The countryman
could make no headway against Simone's cool wit.  He
fell back on the resort of his kind: boasting.  Mine
host's wine, too, in the quantities the man drank,
would have made a braggart of the humblest spirit.

Thus it was that Marion, her eyes on the June roses
that overran the grey walls of the inn, flaming red in
warm sunset, suddenly became aware of the man's
rising voice, of his flourishes as he talked of himself.
She brought her cool, level gaze to bear upon his heated
face.  At the moment he was explaining for the benefit
of the innkeeper his own very great impatience as
compared with other folk who wandered aimlessly on
this dull planet.

'Show us thy merit, then, sir,' broke in the smiling
innkeeper.  'Give us chapter and verse!'

'Ah!' said the other, bridling, ''tis a secret mission.'

Simone slightly shrugged her shoulders and turned
to her custard.

''Tis an interesting word—secret,' she remarked idly.

''Tis a word not much liked hereabouts,' interposed
the landlord with a look for his guest.  ''Tis main near
to Dorchester for that.'

'Ay, well mayst thou look so, my good man,' said
the other, laying down his glass.  'And there be
others who would look on me thus did they know
what I carry.  Before you, madam,' he said, turning
to Simone with a clumsy, top-heavy bow, 'you see a
man in whose hands is a mission of life and death.'

Marion looked hard at the speaker.

'La, la!' said Simone.  'You are then arranging a
duel.  Where is 't to be fought?'

'Ay—a duel, mistress, wherein but one shall bear
a tool.  But—' the man puffed out his chest, 'the
result of my mission may mean that even that one
tool shall be idle.  In the main I hope it may, for I
hear 'tis a well-known youth of excellent parts who has
tripped in the path, and that more out of friendliness
than roguery.'  Taking Marion's unwavering look for
a stare of admiration the man paused for further
effect.  'Ay,' he said again, 'in these hands lies the
life of one who pines yonder—' he jerked his head in
the direction of the setting sun.  'More wine, mine
host.  'Tis a worthy vintage.  Mistress, the honour
of a bumper.'

Marion rose.  'Our host himself will bear you
company, sir,' she said, her face calm.  'I pray you—'
turning to the innkeeper, 'take a bottle at my charges.
'Tis a most excellent supper, and should not be spoilt
with haste.  But as for ourselves, we are somewhat
weary, and we wish you a very good evening.'

The innkeeper's wife came trotting in in answer to
her husband's call, and taking a candle, accompanied
the ladies to their chamber.  In response to Marion's
question, she explained that Zacchary and his fellows
had supped, and, the night being yet young, had gone
over with her own serving men for company for a
friendly hour at the blacksmith's.  The kitchen wenches
were abed, she added, for they must be up before
dawn.  And if the ladies had no further need of her,
she herself would retire.  Marion had already learned
that the inn was also something in the nature of a farm,
and knowing the double labours that must fall on those
plump shoulders, she bade the woman seek her own
couch at once.

'We ourselves must be up before the sun,' she said.
'I would fain be well on the road by seven o'clock.'

With a bobbing curtsey the woman departed.  As
she went down the landing Marion turned and looked
at Simone.





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.. _`IN THE HARNESS ROOM`:

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   CHAPTER XV


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   IN THE HARNESS ROOM

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The two stood in silence until the sound of a
door closing came from the farther end of the
house.

'You have the same dread,' said Marion heavily.
'I can see it.  I had hoped perhaps 'twas my nervous
fancy that, like a colt, shies at every stone in the path.'

She sat down on the low window seat.

'He bears a letter,' said Simone suddenly.

'And 'tis not in his pocket, or he would have slapped
it bravely.  'Tis in his saddlebags.'

'In the stable, Mademoiselle?'

'In the harness room, I expect, next to the stable.
I noted the place when we were waiting.'

Marion buried her face in her hands.  A silence
fell on the little chamber.  The sound of laughter
and voices rose from the room below.

'Mademoiselle,' presently came Simone's whisper,
'this is unbearable.  Perhaps we are both mistaken.
Our thoughts naturally go the same way.  If you saw
the letter, you would know.  Let me find it for you.'

'No,' said Marion firmly, lifting her head.  'No
hand is laid to such an action but my own.  I take
myself whatever risk may befall.  And if I do it, I
must do it at once, before the light fails—and before
delay makes a coward of me.  I had already thought
of it.  'Twould appear easy enough; the men abroad,
the servant girls in bed.  And if I am discovered, I
must be looking at Jennifer's knees.'

'Mademoiselle,' ventured Simone, 'you must be
ready, you know.  The letter will doubtless be sealed.
I have heard that a hot knife, run under the seal,
will ease it without breaking it.  You will find a knife
in the kitchen, and the logs are alight.  I saw the glow
from the passage.'

Marion shivered slightly.  ''Tis a foul thing that I
set myself to do, but I must know.  I must know.
Quick, Simone!  Take off my shoes.  Stockings make
no sound.'

A minute later Marion crept stealthily downstairs.
Mine host and the traveller were talking over their
wine, their heads dark against the sunset light which
fell slanting through the latticed window.

From the crack of the door, as she stole by,
Marion caught a glimpse of the two figures, the
smoke rising from their pipes.  How long would they
stay thus?

Noiselessly she crept along the passage in the
direction whence she had seen the servant girl come
with dishes for supper.  A glow from some interior
warmth lay across the passage stones, the same light
that Simone had noted.  With a quick backward
glance Marion turned in at the open kitchen door.

A fire of logs burned in the huge chimney place,
casting gleams on the brass cooking utensils hanging
on the chimney breast.  On the table stood various
dishes and jugs.  Rapidly Marion looked about for a
knife.  Would she, she thought with a sudden tremor,
be obliged to open a drawer?  Neither on the dresser
nor on the table was a knife to be seen.

She tiptoed across the room to an open door.  Beyond
lay the inn yard and the stables.  The exit was clear.
So far so good; but the knife?

Another door just on the latch stood in the opposite
wall.  Peeping in, Marion saw the place she sought:
the 'wash-up.'  A pile of knives and forks stood on a
side bench, clean from supper, but evidently awaiting
scouring.  Hastily she selected the one with the
slenderest blade.

As she turned to go back into the kitchen, her foot
caught in the slanting leg of a rough stool just inside
the little room.  It jerked on the stones.  Marion
stood still, her heart thumping so loudly that she
felt that the men whose voices came dimly down the
passage must be hearing its beat where they sat.
Something moved overhead.  In an agony of fear
Marion waited.  Should she get out of the kitchen
at once before those steps came downstairs?  Better
anything than be caught indoors in this fashion.  For
close on a minute she stood, the throbbing pulse in
her brow measuring out the seconds.

The sounds did not recur.  She crept towards the
fireplace.  With her ears straining for any sound she
plunged the knife into the glowing embers, and took
her handkerchief to protect her hand from any heat
which the handle might catch.  Not until the blade
was red did she allow herself to withdraw the knife.

Hastily she darted out at the open kitchen door.
A second later she was in the harness room.  At the
doorway she turned and peeped up at the house.
From the small window of an upper chamber came
the gleam of candle light: the bedroom of the
inn-keeper's wife, she guessed.

With the rapidly cooling knife in one hand Marion
cast an experienced eye on the saddles, bridles and
general gear hanging on the walls of the harness room.
On a shelf above stood the only saddle whose bags
were packed and buckled.  Desperately she struggled
with the first buckle.  If the document proved to be
in the second bag she knew she would have to go back
and heat the knife afresh.

Tears of relief blinked in her eyes as she opened the
bag and drew out a folded paper sealed with a large
red seal.  Now for the knife.  Never before had she
tried such an experiment.  Was the knife hot enough?
Gently she slid the blade under the wax.  The seal
came easily away.  Bearing the letter to the half-open
door she glanced hurriedly over its contents.

The letter was written in a bold, legal hand, and was
easily read.  It was inscribed, with many flourishes,
to the Lord High Chancellor of the realm.  Marion's
eyes ran down the lines.  She caught her breath
painfully and went on....  'The question being of
one Roger Trevannion of the parish of Garth, Esquire.
Whereas the prisoner now in the County gaol, Exeter,
hath been found guilty of lending aid and sustenance
to the King's enemies in that he did privily and
treasonably forewarn one Richard Merrion Hooper of
the parish ...'  Marion looked farther down the
page ... 'which crime should assuredly merit death;
but inasmuch that the prisoner be a man of note,
indeed a lord of the manor in his own parts, we lay the
case before your Illustrious Highness in the hope
that your well-known clemency may dictate terms of
mercy.

'Given under our hand and seal....'

With hands that seemed turned to stone Marion
folded the letter.  Mechanically she pressed the knife
to the under surface of the seal.  The blade was almost
cold.  For a few moments she stood, her hand on the
doorpost for support.  An owl hooting in his soundless
flight across the yard made her start and drop the
knife.  Her head swam as she stooped and picked it
up.  Without any further delay, her teeth on her
white, trembling lip, she stole across the yard into
the kitchen and thrust the blade once more into the
glowing embers.  Cold beads stood on her forehead.
She knew she was fast losing control of herself.  But
the hideous task must be finished.  It seemed an
hour before the steel yielded to the heat.  Mechanically
she wrapped the handkerchief round the handle again.
As she went out she heard a chair grate loudly on the
floor in the dining-room beyond.  The men were moving.

A minute later and the seal was pressed home and
the letter replaced.

As she buckled the saddlebag a wave of faintness
overcame her and she leaned against the wall.  She
struggled for breath.  Then stepping to the door, a
new thought seized her.

Why allow that document to go?  There were sheets
of paper in her box upstairs.  Why not risk the enterprise
still further, carry the letter upstairs and transfix
the seal?  Yonder logs in the kitchen would be hot an
hour or more.

Her hand to her forehead, Marion strove desperately
to summon judgment and reason to the aid of her
distracted thoughts.  But as she stood, round and
round in her head, like a clanging bell, sounded the
phrases she had read.  She closed her eyes.
Immediately before her vision came the words *Roger
Trevannion of the parish of Garth, Esquire*.

She opened her eyes with a start.  Yonder men had
been moving in the dining-room when she left the
kitchen.  As she rallied herself, voices sounded in the
still night across the fields.  There came the distant,
quick bark of a dog.  The men were returning from
the blacksmith's.  She stood between two dangers
of detection.

With every nerve tense, trembling from head to
foot, Marion worked out the problem.  If she
destroyed the paper and the courier did not find out the
substitution, the hand of the law might be stayed.
She would gain time.  On the other hand, the messenger
evidently knew something of the nature of his mission.
He would supply certain facts; and Jeffreys' wrath
at being duped would immediately result in a swift
condemnation.

The girl started and clutched the door as the quick
bark sounded again, this time much nearer.

If she let the letter go there was a faint hope of pardon,
in any case she would gain a few days—four perhaps—while
the man was going to London and back.  It was
better so.  The letter should go.

Just as the men opened the outer gate of the farm,
Marion ran back across the kitchen and stood in the
passage.  The innkeeper, in the middle of the dining-room,
his back to the girl, was yawning loudly.  The
courier was emptying his last glass.  Like a ghost
Marion stole past the door and up the stairs.





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.. _`EXETER`:

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   CHAPTER XVI


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   EXETER

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Simone was waiting on the landing, and as her
mistress crept into the room she noiselessly
barred the door.  Marion sank on the bed, breathing
unevenly, her face showing the strain she had undergone.
Simone held a glass of water to her lips.  She
drank eagerly, then buried her face in the coverlet.

Along the passage without went the heavy steps of
the courier.  Simone was seized with a sudden horror
as she realised how near success had run to failure.
Success?  She looked at the bowed head.  Gently she
took up the trembling hands.

''Tis he,' came the broken whisper.  'He is in
Exeter gaol—condemned.  'Twas to Jeffreys, yonder
letter, saying that the prisoner, Roger Trevannion—'  Marion's
whisper became almost inaudible—'had been
found guilty of lending aid and sustenance to the
King's enemies and should rightly be hanged.  But
I can't remember the exact words—the Governor said
that seeing the prisoner was a man of note ... he
wondered if—if—'  Marion's words stumbled, and
Simone bent low.  'If,' finished the girl with a sudden
burst of bitter, contemptuous anger, 'my lord Jeffreys'
well-known clemency would not dictate another—another
sentence.  I can't remember the rest.  Already
I would that I could forget what I have remembered.'

The flame died away as Marion's voice sank into
silence.  The russet gold head drooped forward.  For
several minutes neither moved.

After a time Simone knelt down and gently examined
her mistress's feet.  The stockings were cut here and
there, but the skin was unbroken.  Presently she
coaxed Marion to allow herself to be undressed.  Marion
got up and sat down mechanically as the deft hands did
their work, and finally crept into the sweet,
lavender-scented bed.

'Try to sleep, Mademoiselle,' said Simone, bending
over the pillow to stroke the waving hair from the
forehead.  'You will need all your strength.'

'Ay,' said Marion dully, 'all my strength and yours,
and all my wits and yours.  I have not time to sleep.
I must think.  There is one thing for which we cannot
be sufficiently thankful: we are nearing Exeter.
To-morrow night, with speed, should see us there, at the
end of the journey, but,' she continued in a voice that
matched her haggard face, 'at the beginning of a worse
thing—a race with time.  Get you to bed, Simone, and
to-morrow——'

'Hist!' whispered the other, as a heavy stockinged
tread sounded in the passage and the boards creaked
outside the door, 'yonder comes our bodyguard.  We
had best be silent.'

Soon the steady snores came to their ears.  The
innkeeper moved about in a further room; then silence
fell on the house.

Presently, Marion sat up in bed, her arms round her
knees.  Simone still crouched by her side.

'Have I ever said aught of my Aunt Keziah?' she
whispered.

'No, Mademoiselle.'

'She lives in Exeter.'

Simone's face lighted up.  Her hands clasped each
other.  'Oh, Mademoiselle, what amazing good
fortune!'

'Why?  I had rather lodged at the New Inn.  Being
in my aunt's house I shall be obliged to tell her
everything.  But I dare not go to the inn; she would find
out, it being almost next door to my aunt's house.  It
all depends whether she will be friend or foe.'

'Is Madame your aunt at all like Lady Fairfax?'

'In looks, yes.'

'A second Lady Fairfax had been an ally,
Mademoiselle.  But—but—Madame your aunt may have
influential friends.'

A ghost of a smile flickered over Marion's face.

'Or enemies.  She makes rare enemies, my Aunt
Keziah.  I have only been to the house once, when I
was eight.  'Twas the first coach ride I had ever had.
Then my aunt quarrelled with my father about my
upbringing, and I never saw her again until this year
when she came to Garth.  I remember the house, in
the High Street, near the East Gate.'

A question burned on Simone's lips.  Presently
Marion unconsciously answered it.  'I do not in the
least know where—where the gaol is.'

For close on an hour the two whispered together,
Marion finding a temporary relief in going over and
over again the possibilities of the situation.  Presently
she fell silent, her face showing haggard in the
candle-light.

'There's one thing,' she said at the last.  'Now
something has got to be done.  Only one more day in
that hateful coach, sitting idle.  I have thought and
thought and thought; for four days I have sat thinking.
There will be to-morrow for thinking again.  Then——'

Presently, Marion lay quiet and Simone put out the
candle and turned to her own little pallet bed.  The
moon swung clear above the sloping land, the silver
beams creeping through the cracks of the shuttered
window.  Out in the lane rose suddenly the
full-throated song of the nightingale, answering another
across the valley.  With a stifled moan Marion buried
her face in the pillow.

Simone, undressing in the darkness, shed bitter
tears, and for a long time she crouched by her chair,
summoning remembrance of those two, one near and
one distant, to a Presence where remembrance would
be availing.  The June night went up in beauty; the
world lay bathed in an exceeding peace.  But Marion
tossed to and fro in the darkness, counting the minutes
of each endless hour.

.. vspace:: 2

Just about sunset the following evening the coach
wound down the valley and entered Exeter by the East
Gate.  Zacchary's reluctance to speed up the horses
had been overborne, not so much by Marion's words as
her looks.  It dawned on the old man that his beloved
mistress must be ailing.  Tony the watchful confirmed
his suspicions.  If the mistress had an aunt in Exeter,
said the Londoner, 'twas nothing short of a providence
they should be so near to the town, for to his way of
thinking the young lady was sickening for a fever.
Zacchary said no more.

Mistress Keziah was sitting down to supper in the
low, lattice-windowed room that looked out on the
courtyard.  Beyond the flagged stretch rose high,
creeper-covered walls, in which the great oaken
entrance doors were set.  The house was a rambling,
gabled building, with a garden at the rear, which
was only kept in order because of Mistress Keziah's
sense of duty to her forbears.  Rarely she walked
therein; only part of the large house was inhabited,
Mistress Keziah loving to spend the greater
part of her income on her visits to Bath, where
she lived some months of each year in state and
splendour.

The sound of horses and wheels, and the clang of the
courtyard bell, roused in her a lively curiosity.  Quickly
she thought of the few folk in the neighbourhood who
might pay her an evening visit in a coach drawn by at
least four horses.  When the footman opened the
courtyard door and a tall young lady walked in, wearing
a travelling cloak and hood which bore the unmistakable
mark of a London tailor, Mistress Keziah was
filled with amazement.

A minute later the footman entered the room and
stood aside to allow the visitor to pass.

'Mistress Marion Penrock.'

'Marion!  My child!'

The lady stepped forward with open arms.  Any
doubt Marion had as to her welcome was swept away
in a close embrace.

'I can scarce believe my eyes,' said Mistress Keziah,
holding her guest at arm's length for a survey.

'But you have grown, I declare!  You look mighty
different.'

The stern look Marion had remembered disappeared
from the angular features.  The old lady was secretly
overjoyed that Marion had elected of her own free will
to make a visit to her house.  'But why such a pale,
worn face?  How far have you come?  Are you
alone?  Take the saddle of mutton back, Thomas,
and keep it hot while my niece prepares for supper.
Tell Mercian to see to the guest chamber.  How many
servants have you, my dear?'

'Three men and my waiting woman, Simone.  I
should like you to speak to Simone, Aunt Keziah,'
said Marion dropping her voice.  'She is more
companion than servant.  Where are you, Simone?'

Simone stepped forward from the hall.  Her faultless
slow curtsey, the grave dignity with which she
responded to the lady's greetings, pleased Mistress
Keziah mightily.  Just such a servant would she have
chosen herself.

The two girls followed their hostess up the oaken
stair, across the gallery and into her own room, where
Simone hastily prepared her mistress for supper.  The
old lady would not allow a change of dress.  She had
already remarked on Marion's pallor.  When she
heard how far they had driven since daybreak, and the
speed with which the party had come from London,
she decided that food and rest were more necessary than
fair raiment.

'*D'ailleurs*,' was Simone's inward comment, 'she
wants to know all about it.  But she has a store of
kindness somewhere under a crust of something.  How
beautiful she must have been in her youth!'

Marion never quite knew how that seemingly interminable
meal passed.  In the presence of the servants
she talked of London and her aunt, the queen's illness
and visit to the Wells, trying meanwhile to eat a
little of the food piled on her plate.  But her aunt's
shrewd eye was on her, 'Why has she come?' her
unspoken question.  She knew at once that the girl was
under the spell of some unhappiness.  When the
servants withdrew, Mistress Keziah looked inquiringly
at the pale face across the table, where the candlelight
picked out the shadows under the eyes and the gold of
the hair.

Marion responded to the look.  'Forgive me, Aunt
Keziah, I can't talk to-night.  My head aches so.  Will
you bear with my silence till to-morrow?'

'How she has changed!' mused the lady as she
strove to soften the habitual rigour of her speech—about
which she was quite conscious and in fact complacent—and
set the girl at her ease.  'No longer a child.
What is it?  Has some gallant yonder bruised her
simple, unprepared heart?  Oh, that brother of mine,
and his upbringing!'  Thus, running back to her old
grievance, Mistress Keziah's face hardened again.
Then recollecting herself, she presently rose and took
the girl to her room.

'I am very sorry, Aunt Keziah,' faltered Marion, as
her aunt bid her good-night.

'So am I, if you are going to be poorly, my dear child,
but for no other reason.  Are you sure you will not
take a dose of my herb tea?'

Marion made a slight grimace.  'I could never
abide the idea of physicking.  For that matter, I have
never been ill, except for childish complaints.'

'Just like your father,' commented Mistress Keziah.
'But,' she added, 'don't be afraid of me.  I am not an
ogre.'

Marion smiled faintly.  'I was terrified of you at
Garth, Aunt Keziah.'

'But you have seen a little of the world since then,'
drily commented the lady.  'The same kind of fear
should never recur.  Good-night, my dear.  Sleep well.'

But darkness brought no relief to Marion.  With
morning she was feverish, wild-eyed, more awake than
ever.  A new horror seized Simone when, in response
to her mistress's call, she sprang up from a troubled
sleep and drew the curtains wide.  If the girl could
not sleep, she would soon be really ill.  And what
then?

Presently Simone took her courage in both hands
and, saying nothing to Marion, sought Mistress Keziah.
The gaunt face in its frilled nightcap, and the many
wrappings by which the lady imagined she warded off
rheumatism, made in their way the most awe-inspiring
sight Simone had yet encountered.  But, as Marion
said, Simone never made a mistake.  After a few
minutes' conversation, Mistress Keziah pulled the bell-rope
at the head of her bed.  'I must get up,' she said.

'If Madame will pardon me,' ventured Simone,
'Mademoiselle is a little strained.  This is to my
knowledge two full nights that she has not slept.  Since
we left London, in fact, she has slept very little.
And—Mademoiselle is accustomed to my nearness.'

'And you think I should frighten her?' grimly
demanded the old woman.  'Well, well.  The point is,
she must sleep.  And sleep well; whatever her trouble
may be—'twill not be eased by a fever!  You say she
lies and stares and plucks at the sheets?  I will cure
her.'

Here the servant entered, and Mistress Keziah gave
minute directions concerning a particular bundle of
herbs in the still room.  'Brew it thrice the strength,
Alison,' she concluded.

Presently Simone came to Marion's side with a
steaming cup.

'If you care at all for the success of your journey,
Mademoiselle, you will drink this.'

'I must get up,' said Marion wildly.  'Do you know
yonder courier is now within a day of London?  Another
day, and he will be thinking of return; three more,
and he will be here, in Exeter.  Have you thought of it?'

'I have thought of everything, Mademoiselle.  But
you will be tossing in a fever, soon, and the week will
go by none the less.  Drink this.'

With her distracted gaze on Simone, Marion took the
cup and drained it.  Anxiously the French girl sat by
the bed, watching and soothing the restless hands.  She
dared not think of the result should the potion prove to
be ineffectual.  But presently the weary, purple eyelids
drooped, the strained lines on the pallid face relaxed.
Marion sank into a heavy, motionless sleep.





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.. _`AN EAST WINDOW`:

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   CHAPTER XVII


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   AN EAST WINDOW

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As the day wore on, Mistress Keziah came several
times into the room, nodding with grim
satisfaction as she noted the steady breathing, and the
natural look on the sleeper's face.  The afternoon
sunlight was sloping through the trees when, after the
hour's rest she always took in her chamber at this time,
she again opened her niece's door.  Simone rose
quickly from her seat by the bed, and joined the lady
where she stood.

'Is it well that my mistress should sleep on thus,
Madame?  She has scarcely stirred since you were
here before!'  Simone spoke in undisguised anxiety.

'Excellent!  Excellent!' said Mistress Keziah.
'The potion was a secret of my grandmother's.  I
have never known it fail.  The brew your mistress
drank would make a strong man sleep for twelve hours.
In her case, youth will assist in the fight.  Once the
clock turns, mark my words, she will sleep for another
twelve hours, and will wake like a little child.'

Simone started.  'Another twelve hours!  Oh! what
shall I do?'

The words slipped from her before she quite realised
their import, and as she met Mistress Keziah's look of
amazement she changed colour.

'Well,' said Mistress Keziah, 'and why should she
not sleep?'

Simone held a swift parley with herself as she
stood with downcast eyes before the old woman who
was so like, yet so unlike, her sister.  With Lady
Fairfax, Simone would have known at once what course
to take.

'I am waiting,' said Mistress Keziah.

Simone looked up at her, her dark lashes heavy
with tears; her lips trembled.

'You are yourself scarcely fit to be out of bed,'
said Mistress Keziah.  'Come into my chamber a
minute.  Alison will stay here.'

'But,' faltered Simone, 'if Mademoiselle should
wake?'

'When Mademoiselle does wake, she will be herself
again.  And Alison is a comely maid.  I understand 'tis
from my own face you would protect her.'

A smile broke over the angular features, and to
Simone's amazement, Mistress Keziah passed her arm
round her shoulders, and drew her across the gallery.
The comely Alison, sitting at the needlework table, was
sent to Marion's chamber.  With her own hands
Mistress Keziah poured out a glass of cordial and
tendered it to Simone.  She took a seat in a
high-backed chair by the window, and beckoned Simone
to a stool at her side.  The girl's fingers trembled as
she held the glass.

'You are in trouble,' said Mistress Keziah, a gentleness
in her voice which Simone had not heard before,
'and so is my niece.  A burden shared is a burden
eased.  Can you not tell me?  I should not have asked
for your confidence, but Mistress Marion said she
would tell me to-day, and I gather there is a question
of urgency.  If you think 'twould be better for me to
know to-day—if I could do anything——  Do not be
afraid of me, *mon enfant*.  I am an old woman and
quite—quite harmless,' she finished with a smile that
lay warmly on her wintry face.

Simone buried her face in her slim, fine hands.
Then looking up, brushing away the tears, she
spoke.  'I think I must tell you, Madame.  I—I
cannot bear it.  I know Mademoiselle intended to tell
you everything, and I will risk her displeasure in
speaking myself.'  She glanced towards the closed door, and
dropped her voice.  ''Tis thus——' she hesitated a
moment, then made a sudden plunge.  'Master Roger
Trevannion is here, a prisoner, in Exeter.  He warned
a friend—an old school friend, Madame—that he was in
danger of arrest by Jeffreys' men.  Master Roger was
betrayed.  The friend got away, but Master Roger was
taken.  A girl of the village wrote a letter to Kensington,
warning Mademoiselle that she feared trouble was
coming, before this happened.  Then another letter to
say Master Roger was arrested.  On the journey here
we learned that he is condemned to death, and there
are but a few days of grace.'

Not a muscle stirred in Mistress Keziah's face as
Simone went from sentence to sentence of her story.
When the girl paused, she sat looking fixedly through
the window for several minutes.  Simone watching
her, saw an expression of mingled sorrow and scorn
settle on her features.  Simone's heart sank.  A sense
of unutterable foreboding assailed her.  Was the worst
still to come—Mistress Keziah's enmity?

'You will see, Madame,' she presently ventured in
trembling tones, stating the case for her dear lady as
best she might, 'Mademoiselle felt she was the only one
who might be able to help.  Monsieur the Admiral she
dared not appeal to.  A magistrate has but to see the
course of the law fulfilled.  And Mademoiselle has a
sore heart for her playmate.  There is no one she can
trust.  Hence Mademoiselle has come herself.  You
knew Master Roger, Madame?'

Mistress Keziah looked hastily down at the girl.  'I
have no blame for my niece,' she said abruptly.  'I
was thinking of her father.'  Simone remembered
Marion's words: 'She quarrelled with my father on the
question of my upbringing.'

For some time neither spoke.  Then Simone ventured
again: 'You knew Master Roger, Madame?'

The hard old face softened.  Before Mistress Keziah's
eyes was a vision of the tall youth of whom she had
heard so much.  He had never come to the house
while she was at Garth; she had never spoken with
him save once, when she was walking with the Admiral,
and Roger had ridden by.  In her heart of hearts
the old lady had liked the boy, but she had chosen to
lecture her brother on the foolishness of allowing Marion
to have such a playmate: precisely the same word as
Simone had used had come from the Admiral in describing
the boy.  And now the playmate was in the dark
shadow, and Marion was heart-broken.

All Mistress Keziah's theories and denunciations fell
away.  The sense of romance which had been sleeping
for a generation stirred, reminding her of other days,
of her own youth, when some one else, just such another,
had come her way and gone his way, banished by her
pride.  The storm that had sunk his vessel had made
shipwreck of her own happiness, but no one had ever
known.  She saw the years of her life as they had gone
by.  Should such a fate be Marion's?  She sighed.
Simone, watching her face, saw the expression changing,
and knew the day was won.  She lifted the wrinkled
hand to her lips.  'You will be kind to her, Madame?
You will not be angry?' she implored.  'You are
the only friend she—she has.'

Mistress Keziah brought herself back to the present.
She smiled down at the wistful face, and Simone was
comforted.  Mistress Keziah fell into deep thought.

'Does Lady Fairfax know of this?'

'No, Madame.  She is at Tunbridge with Her
Majesty; there was not time for us to go or to send.
Mademoiselle wrote to her, though, telling her why she
had left London in such haste.  She must have had the
letter ere this.'

'Who betrayed him?' presently asked the old lady.

''Twas said by the fisher girl that a Mademoiselle——'

'Elise!' cried Mistress Keziah, and her hand smote
the arm of her chair.  'I knew it!  I knew it!'

Simone looked perplexed as Mistress Keziah got up.

'Go and lie down, Simone,' she said, her old brusque
manner returning.  'I must think.  Stay!  Has any
one any inkling of the reason of your mistress's visit to
this house?'

'No one, Madame.  The menservants think Mademoiselle
is ailing, and would rest here a few days.'

'Excellent.  You know, of course,' said Mistress
Keziah, falling back into the whispering tones, 'that
should this be noised abroad, the fate that overtook
poor Master Roger will fall on your mistress.'

Simone shivered.  'No one knows, Madame, I
assure you.'

'And on myself, and on you,' relentlessly pursued
the lady.  'There is no mercy to temper justice in
these days.  Well, well, no need to say more on that.'

'Madame—just one thing—where—where is the prison?'

'Ah!  I bethink me of another thing.  How did you
learn the lad was condemned?'

Simone hesitated, and her colour rose.  But there
was no retreat.  In a few words she told of Marion's
search in the courier's saddlebags, contriving to get
into her short story a sense of the danger the girl had
run.  Mistress Keziah's eyes gleamed, but the bolt of
wrath Simone dreaded did not fall.

'She is her father's daughter!' she said abruptly.
'As foolish as she is fearless.  Tell me the exact words:
was it Exeter gaol, or the Castle?'

'Gaol, Madame.'

Mistress Keziah leaned back in her chair.  'Ah!'

Simone waited.

'If you would just tell me, Madame?'

'From the most easterly chamber yonder, leaving
the gallery and going along the far passage, into a
room that is rarely entered, you will get a glimpse of
the gaol and the yard.  Now go.  Go quietly.  Do
not arouse the servants' curiosity, and when you have
satisfied your own, remember I told you to rest.'

Simone gave one hasty glance into Marion's room,
then set out to explore.  With the doors opening on to
the gallery she was by this time familiar: Mistress
Keziah's bedroom, dressing-room and sitting-room
occupied one side, on the other came Marion's two
rooms, another bedroom, another sitting-room.  In the
corner of the gallery were the double doors that led into
the passage Mistress Keziah had mentioned.

With a hasty glance around that told her she was
unobserved, Simone quietly slipped through the double
doors.  The unmistakable odour of tenantless rooms
greeted her as she went along, glancing into the
chambers she passed.  The passage ran almost due
east.  On one hand the windows looked cheerlessly
out on to stables and coach-houses, and the wall which
divided the grounds from the road beyond.  Behind
the wall rose the slope of Castle Hill, with its grey stone
walks and cluster of buildings at the summit.  The
rooms on the southern side were filled with the
afternoon sun, and caught the green of the garden trees.

Simone entered the last room, paused, then looked
back along the landing.  Mistress Keziah had said
that the end chamber faced the east: the single,
half-shuttered window of this room looked north.  Could
there be another passage branching off?

She looked round the room again.  Behind the door
was a smaller one, looking like that of a closet.  With
difficulty Simone forced the door open, and saw in the
dim light a narrow winding flight of steps.  With her
skirts tucked round her knees, Simone climbed the
uneven dusty stair, and presently stood in a small dark
chamber under the eaves.  It was empty, dusty, foul
from non-usage.  Light streaming in through the
crevices of a shutter outlined a single tiny window set
low—the eastward wall.  Gasping a little in the closeness
of the air, Simone struggled with the rusty bolts,
and presently shot back the shutters and opened the
pane.  It was not more than a foot wide and two feet
deep.

As she knelt down and peered through, Simone could
scarcely breathe for the quickness of her heart beats.
Directly below her ran the length of the rambling
garden, ending in thick, tall trees.  A little to the left,
Simone caught sight of a grim-looking building which
needed no explaining.  She leaned forward, putting
her head through the little opening.  The south and
west parts of the gaol were clearly visible, being indeed
not more than a hundred yards away, only separated
from Mistress Keziah's garden by the cobbled road.  A
thick high wall ran close up to the south side, on the
west and north widening to enclose a bare foul patch,
strewn with refuse, on which the sun fell with baking
heat: the gaol yard.  A faint odour seemed to strike
the girl's nostrils, and she shivered as she remembered
the dark stories of prison life, of uncleanness and gaol
fever which from time to time had come to her ears.
She no longer wondered why Mistress Keziah lived in
the west wing of her house.

Over several grated windows Simone looked, one by
one, but could see no signs of the life of the interior.
Then, realising there might be a guard-room down
there, whose windows looked out on the yard, and
whence to a curious observer she might be visible, she
withdrew her head.  Crouching on the worm-eaten
boards, she found a position that enabled her, unseen
from without, to watch the prison and the yard.

As Simone waited, wondering if the prisoners would
come out, there was the sound of shuffling feet, and
from the shadow at the end of the building a man came
in sight, carbine on shoulder.  He paced the length of
the gaol, turned, and was again lost in the shade.
Presently Simone saw him walking the length of the
yard.  Then the footsteps were silent awhile.

Simone crouched until her limbs were aching
and she dared stay no longer, lest Alison should seek
her in her own room.  But no face or form rewarded
her vigil; only the gaunt walls and mocking bars
showed, hideously bare in the sunlight.  Behind
which of those narrow apertures was the condemned
youth hidden?

Presently the girl rose, and cautiously crept back
along the passage.  She waited several minutes behind
the double doors, and looked carefully along the gallery
and into the hall below before she gained her own room.
Then, bathing her face and hands, and removing all
traces of dust from her dress, she went into Marion's
chamber.  Alison rose with a smile, and beckoned
her past the sleeping figure to the farther door.

'My mistress has gone to make a visit,' she informed
Simone.  'Have you rested well?'

'Very well, thank you.'

'The young mistress is sleeping bravely.  Her'll
be fresh as a daisy come the morning.'

With her usual gentle politeness, Simone thanked
the girl for her services, and closed the door as she went
across the gallery to the servants' stairs.  Taking up
her old position by the bed, Simone looked sorrowfully
at the face on the pillow.

Marion was in the same position.  Her breathing was
that of a child; the strained lines had gone from her
face.  Simone could have cried aloud on the unkind
kindness of fate in ordering her healing so.  By the
morrow there would be only two clear days left, the
third should see the courier returned.  As she thought
of the gaol, with its impassable walls hiding the sinister,
watching shadow, the stout-barred window niches,
Simone felt sick at heart.  Who could break through
such barriers?  Two frail girls and an old woman?

Sitting idle was intolerable.  Simone stole into
Mistress Keziah's empty room, and taking up the sheet
Alison had been stitching, bore it back to Marion's
chamber.  For a couple of hours she sat thus, and it
seemed, as each quarter chimed from the church
beyond, that the next would be unbearable.

A kitchen-maid brought in her supper, with a
message from Mistress Keziah that she would speak
with Simone the next morning.  So that was the end
of another day.

The westering sunlight sloped across the hill, and the
golden radiance fell on Simone's pale face as she sat
before the generously piled dishes.  She drank some
milk, and ate a little bread and honey, afterwards
resting motionless in a kind of mental and physical
apathy.  Presently she roused herself, and in
unutterable weariness and despondency sought her own
bed.  For the first time she understood fully just what
the strain of waiting had been to Marion.  Rather than
wait another day, Simone vowed, she would scale those
prison walls herself.  Her desperate fancy dwelt on
the picture until, towards midnight, a restless sleep
stole over her.  She dreamed of horsemen innumerable
bearing down towards her, each carrying a warrant of
death.  As they neared, the lane down which they
rode—the same lane where the coach had foundered—broke
into prison yards and opened again.  All through
her sleep the dream seemed to come and go, making a
lifetime of its passing.  At length, in a sudden access
of horror, she saw that one of the riders charged into
her room.  She woke with a scream in the grey dawn,
to find Marion standing by her bed, shaking her arm.





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.. _`THE SIGNAL`:

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   CHAPTER XVIII


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   THE SIGNAL

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It was almost three o'clock.  Marion and Simone,
crouched by the window in the little room over
the east landing, were watching for the prisoners to
come out into the yard.  Mistress Keziah had said
that it was the custom for them to be given an hour's
exercise at that time.

Marion, fully recovered, was strangely quiet.  Her
anger at the method of her aunt's cure had soon worn
itself out.  The knowledge that the prisoner was almost
within hail absorbed all her thoughts, and she was
secretly thankful to find that the day which had passed
so idly had not only spared her the ordeal of an
explanation to her aunt, but had brought great gain in the
way of restored mental and physical strength.
Forgetting all that lay behind, she now drove her whole
energies forward in one channel.

The morning had passed in speculations indoors and
a drive round the Castle and the town, during which
the horses had, strangely enough, halted to rest near
the gates of the gaol.  While Mistress Keziah's
coachman had exchanged friendly remarks on the health of
the inmates with the sentry peering through the wicket,
Marion's eyes had taken in the exact height of the
prison wall, its character, its distance from the
eastward bounds of her aunt's garden across the way.

'No need to stay here, Tom,' sharply called Mistress
Keziah a minute later, and the coachman had driven
on, remarking on the increasing ill-temper and
contrariness of his mistress.  Had she not called a halt
just there?  As if the horses needed resting, forsooth!
Down the road that bordered the gaol the coach had
gone, passing Mistress Keziah's own gate and thence
into the town.  Marion had thus a first-hand knowledge
of the respective positions of the two buildings.  During
the drive in the streets she had remained silent.  On
the homeward way she turned to her aunt.

'Have you a long rope or cord in the house, Aunt Keziah?'

'Plenty, I should think, my dear.  I will find out.
The chief trouble, you know, is the servants' curiosity.
Mercifully, yonder London men, Reuben and Tony,
are completely turning the heads of the kitchen wenches.
There is no fear of their having an idle hour to watch
your movements.  My greatest difficulty is Alison,
who spends quite half her time above-stairs, and
Josiah, who is her shadow when she descends.'

'Has she not a mother or a father, Madame?'
inquired Simone.

Mistress Keziah made no reply.  But afterwards
when Alison was arranging her gown for dinner,
Mistress Keziah said with her usual abruptness:
'You are looking pale, Alison.  I think 'tis well you
should take a rest.  The day is fine.  The walk will be
pleasant.  Get you to your home and stay there a
week.  Yonder Simone will manage my hair and
gowns, I trow.'  Then, when Alison's face had darkened
in jealousy, the old lady had added indifferently,
'Unless, of course, you too are held by the company
and amusement of the men in the kitchen.'

Alison tossed her head.  The goad to her pride
served its purpose.  She said no more, but soon after
dinner she set out on the five-mile walk to her father's
farm, escorted by Josiah, who was carrying her small
bundles and had been given a hint by his mistress that
if he truly loved the comely Alison, here was a chance
of prospering his suit.

The old lady sat for a long time thinking, alone in
her room.  The two girls, she knew, were at the little
window, hoping for a sight of Roger.  Mistress Keziah's
face was stern and fixed.  During the conversation of
the morning she had judged it best to withhold two
facts from the knowledge of her guests.  The first was
her discovery that her old friend the governor of the
castle was still away in the north country, where he
had gone to visit the governor of York.  The
deputy-governor was a man whom Mistress Keziah held in open
dislike because of his truckling politics when Jeffreys
was in the West.  (As Marion had said, she made rare
enemies.)  There was therefore no chance of an appeal.
She knew of no other quarter whence any influence
could be brought to bear on the doings of Jeffreys' men.

Her first thought had been to seek the governor and
pray for time; not knowing whether he was returned
or not she had refrained from visiting the castle, but
had sought the house of a friend overnight through
whose rooms as in a living stream poured all the news
of the county.  Once the governor's compliance won,
she had determined to send her fastest rider to Lady
Fairfax in order to seek a royal pardon, if, indeed, her
sister had not already taken that course.

With the discovery that the governor was away, the
old lady's solitary hope had fallen.  She could not
think of any possible means by which, in less than three
days, the fortress could be won.  When it came to the
moment, prison bars and walls were mightily
inaccessible: it was only in Biblical days that the stones
fell down.

On any other save a question of time she could have
won the day.  But Exeter was three days' ride—two
in an extremity—from London.  And while Royal
Pardons were being sought, yonder courier, fresh from
his audience with Jeffreys, was bringing back the word
of doom.  Of Jeffreys' clemency Mistress Keziah had
not the slightest hope.  She remembered too vividly
that red Assize in Exeter.  She also knew the
deputy-governor well enough to surmise that 'twas not in
hopes of mercy he had sent the courier, but rather to
show in what faithful stewardship the affairs of Devon
reposed.  Roger Trevannion was no ordinary prisoner:
a very long feather in the cap of justice.

The second item that she had sorrowfully withheld
had also been learned in her friend's house.  Admiral
Penrock had been seen, two days previously, riding
in his coach at a gallop, London bound.  Another futile
errand.  She knew from Marion that her father had
been much abroad in the far west on magisterial
affairs.  Evidently the news of Roger's arrest had at
last reached him.  He had posted off to London and
would arrive in the presence of the Lord Chancellor,
Mistress Keziah estimated, about a day after the
courier had left for Exeter.

With these sad thoughts for company, Mistress
Keziah had spent most of the night.  Secretly
convinced that the quest was hopeless, she had
nevertheless humoured her niece to the utmost, taking her
where she would, sending her servants out of the way
so that no hint of Marion's strange doings should
become common to the household.  And now she sat,
slowly gathering her strength for the ordeal of the day
after to-morrow, when Marion, pale, sweet Marion,
with her childhood's loyalty and unavowed, growing
woman's-feelings would find herself beaten down,
helpless, broken-hearted.

There was still a great store of fighting strength in
the old woman, and when she pondered on the comings
and goings, Marion and Simone here, her brother
urging his horses to London, her sister—the more she
thought the more she was sure—using every ounce of
power and influence to obtain a Royal Pardon, and all
one day—two days—too late, she knotted her thin
hands together in fury at her own helplessness.  When
she thought of Marion, hot tears scorched her eyelids.
When she thought of Roger, she buried her face in
her hands and prayed.  *In the hour of death, and in
the Day of Judgement...*

Meanwhile Marion and Simone crouched by the
window.  There was just room inside the tiny
casement for the two, unseen from without, to watch the
door that led into the gaol yard, Marion to the front,
Simone peering over her shoulder.

'What are you going to do, Mademoiselle?' queried
Simone.

'I do not in the least know.  But I have a feeling
that when the hour comes I shall do something.'

Simone said nothing.  The revelation of Marion's
quiet strength was nothing new to her.  She prepared
herself to serve in whatever way might lie in her power.
But Simone's eyes were shrewd, and she had read the
expression in Mistress Keziah's face as she watched
Marion's eyes counting the yards and feet outside the
gaol.  She knew that in her inmost heart Mistress Keziah
had no hope.  But she had said 'Yes, my dear,' her grim
face unusually gentle, when Marion had asked for a
rope; 'Yes, my dear,' when Marion had asked was there
a well-ground file handy, and perhaps a ladder to be left
carelessly in the garden: 'Yes, my dear.'  Everything
that Marion wanted in the way of properties
and personal help would be hers until the hopeless
game was played out.  Simone saw it all very plainly.

What was going on behind that calm, pale face whose
cheek, softly curving, was so near her own?

As Simone, sorely cramped, was moving her limbs,
Marion suddenly cried, 'They come!'  Simone craned
forward.  In the quiet afternoon rose a sound of
shuffling feet and voices.  Out into the sunshine
lurched a number of men.

Marion caught her breath painfully as she looked
at them.  They were rough, ill-clad, foul-featured.
There was evidently some quarrel among them, for
they settled in a group, their voices rising.  One held
his fists clenched.  But where?  Ah!  Marion's sudden
movement told Simone who was yonder tall,
broad-shouldered youth who strolled idly out to the yard.
He leaned against the prison wall and looked up at the
sky, across at the trees of Mistress Keziah's garden.  In
a flash Marion saw her opportunity.  No other face
was turned her way.  She thrust her head out of the
tiny window.  The sunlight, falling over the eaves,
made a halo of the shining, gold hair.  Roger's eyes
caught the glow.  He started perceptibly.  For a
second he stared up; his eyes held hers.  Then
Marion withdrew, and Roger turned and walked away.

Marion's breath came and went.  She sank back on
the floor.

'He saw me!' she panted.  'Has any one noted
his glance?  Look, quickly.'

'No one has turned this way.  He walks up and
down.  He does not glance up at all.'

'Let me come.'  Marion crouched forward again, her
trembling hand resting on Simone's.  That sight of
Roger, his face so pale, his eyes sunk under the brows,
had almost unnerved her.  Tears blinded her vision
as she looked down at her old playmate pacing the
prison yard.  The last time she had seen him, he had
been arguing with her, in his old masterful way, on the
folly of her going to London; had made her promise
to send to him should she need help.  And now!

The sound of angry voices rose again in the quiet
air.  The prisoners were still quarrelling.  Inside an
eager ring a couple of men set on each other, watched
on the one hand by Roger, idle, aloof, and on the other
by the gaolers, greedy of bloodshed.  While the fists
were flying, Roger allowed himself one more glance at
the little casement, taking in its position in a lingering
sweeping look at the sky.  A hoarse chuckle came from
the shadow in the buttressed wall.  'Thinking of
heaven already, my lad?'

Marion shuddered.

'Don't listen,' urged Simone.  'Don't look.  Come
away, Mademoiselle.  He has seen you.  You have
gained your end.'

Marion shook her head.  For a seemingly endless
time the two crouched by the window, watching the
fight in the gaol yard.

'His window must be visible from here,' presently
said Marion.  'See there, just behind, where there is
another cluster of chimneys close to the back of the
building.  There cannot be cells on that side.'

'Except dark cells,' assented Simone.  'And those
would be for murderers.  Ah! they are going in.'

The two were silent as the gaolers drove in their
charges.  Roger did not turn his head, much less
venture a look.

'You watch the south side and I the west,' said
Marion.  'He will wait for one second when the
sentry is not looking, and will let us know.  He must
realise we are here to help.'

The minutes idled by.  Neither stirred.  Marion
sick at heart, was beginning to think of condemned
cells, when Simone gave a cry.

'I saw it!  His hand for one second through the
bars!  There is the window, Mademoiselle, the third
from the end, the south side.'

As she spoke both Marion and Simone uncurled
themselves from their cramped position and sat side
by side on the floor.  Simone winced as her aching
muscles asserted themselves, but she soon scrambled
to her feet.  'We have been here for hours,
Mademoiselle.  I am still afraid of the curiosity of the
servants.'

Unseen, the two regained the gallery.  Marion sank
in a chair by the window of her room, her brows
knitted, deep in thought.  Presently she raised her
head...

'It is simple enough,' she whispered.  'He just
needs a file and a rope.  With two of those bars gone,
and a rope, he could let himself down to the ground.
That rough boundary wall he could easily climb.
What can we do?  Oh, what *can* we do?'

'If we had any friends in the gaoler's house,' said
Simone after a time, 'we might send in something—a
pie, a dumpling with the file inside.  But to arrange
that takes a long time and much management.  Still,
if you think it worth while, Mademoiselle, I will
disguise myself as a cook.  I will seek the gaoler
and—win his regard,' finished Simone.

'Then I should lose you both.  No—such a plot—I
had already thought of it in the coach on the way—as
you said, needs a network of conspiracy.  It would
involve the kitchen here, and my aunt.  It needs
knowledge of the interior of the prison, of the particular
kind of character of the gaoler.  An ordinary gaoler
would eat the pie himself.  No, the risk that is run
must be mine.  Above all, my aunt must not suffer.
It looks so simple,' Marion added desperately, 'just
to get that file and rope into his cell.'

'That is the trouble with most prisons,' said Simone
naïvely.

Marion did not hear her.  Her head had fallen on
her hand again.  An hour passed by.  The girl seemed
to be turned to stone.  Just as Simone, busy with her
needle, was about to break the oppressive silence,
Marion raised her head.  There was a strange look in
her face, as if she were greeting some one unknown at
a distance.

'Don't speak to me,' she said.  'I think—I think
I have found a way.'  She drew a long breath.  The
wide grey eyes resting on Simone slowly came back to
the measure of the room.  'Yes.'  She rose.  'Get
my cloak and hood, Simone.  I must ask my aunt
if we may walk down into the town.'

Marion had barely finished her sentence before
Mistress Keziah herself opened the door.  She heard
in silence Marion's request.

'Had you not better drive?' she said, after a
minute's thought.

'I think not, Aunt Keziah.  A person can go unnoticed
where a coach cannot.  And there is not time
to explain just now.  Do not, I pray you, Aunt
Keziah, deny me this hour's liberty.'

'My dear child,' said the old woman, her voice
breaking, 'I have but one wish, and that is to help
you.'

Marion looked at the speaker.  In her hardly
suppressed eagerness and excitement, her hands on
her cloak, she had scarcely noted her.  Now she saw
traces of tears.  Her arms went suddenly round
her aunt's neck in a mute embrace.  Then she withdrew
herself with a gesture Simone understood.  There
was no time for weeping.

Mistress Keziah sat down.  'Listen.  I can't let
you go alone.  You must take old Zacchary.  He is
the most to be trusted, the least inclined to chatter.
Ring the bell, Simone—better still, go down and fetch
him: say I wish to speak to him.'

'I did want to keep Zacchary out of the way of any
possible suspicion, now or later, Aunt Keziah.  He is
an old man.'

'We are all either old or young,' remarked Mistress
Keziah drily.

As Marion tied on her hood Zacchary appeared at
the door.  His wrinkled face lighted up at the sight
of his 'little maid.'

'Come here, Zacchary,' said Mistress Keziah.

The old groom stepped awkwardly forward.  He
was always at a loss what to do with his feet, save in
the stable yard or on the box.  His fingers tugged at
his hair.

'Mistress Marion and Simone wish to take a walk
in the town, Zacchary.  You are to follow them close
behind.  If they enter any house or shop, wait.'

Zacchary nodded.

'There is no need to say anything in the kitchen,
Zacchary,' said Marion.

Zacchary pulled his hat from under his arm.

'Her told me' (with a look at Simone), ''twas to
go down along.  There hain't no call to go to the
kitchen.  Here a be.'

'You understand, Zacchary, that should you at any
time be questioned as to the doings of your mistress
while in Exeter, you know nothing.'

'A don't be knowing in any case, Mistress.'

'Continue not to know.  Otherwise there will be
danger for Mistress Marion.'

Zacchary thought hard as he followed his young
charges into the town.  Something was amiss.  He
realised, looking back, that something had been amiss,
all the way down from London.  But in the meantime,
he had his orders.

With Simone at her side, looking neither to the
right nor to the left where passers-by were concerned,
Marion went over the town on a search which greatly
excited Simone's curiosity.  She saw that in one shop
her mistress bought a hank of the finest grey embroidery
silk.  Before another shop she paused, bidding Simone
wait with Zacchary.  Simone looked curiously at the
sign, which showed that a gunsmith and armourer
carried on his trade there.  Marion came out
empty-handed.  The end of her search was evidently not yet.

''Tis getting late, Mistress,' said Zacchary, his eye
on the sun, as she joined the waiting pair.

A fleeting look of horror passed over Marion's face,
and she turned aside from old Zacchary's vision.  At
that moment a man lounged by, his gait marked by
the obvious roll of the sailor.  Marion glanced idly at
him.  Then she swung round and looked again, a
puzzled expression in her eyes.  What was there
familiar about that face and figure?

Zacchary's eyes were also on the retreating sailor.
He noted his mistress's glance, but said nothing.  Like
herself, he was musing on the vague likeness to some
one he knew very well.  Marion and Simone walked
on, followed by Zacchary.  Suddenly the old man
stopped in his walk, and turning, looked at the feet of
the man just making the corner of the street.  His old
eyes gleamed.

'May a be everlastingly goshwoggled!' he exclaimed.
He quickened his pace, and joining Marion,
said something in her ear.

'Are you sure?' asked Marion incredulously.

'Sarten sure, Mistress.  Couldn't mistake they feet
nowhere.  A allus said Poole'd escape again.  Good
for little maid Charity, bless her heart!'

Marion glanced quickly round.  'Gently, Zacchary,'
she said.  'Don't take any notice of me, if I think of
speaking to him.'

Zacchary fell back, his face sombre; the world
seemed very much awry.

In the meantime, Marion's wits were hard at work.
She was walking slowly on.

'Now I think I want to buy a yard of ribbon I had
forgotten, for my aunt's lavender cap.  Did you not
see how the ribbon was worn, Simone?'

Simone made a slight *moue*.  'As you like, Mademoiselle.'

The haberdasher's shop was at the extreme end of
the street down which, Marion had noted, the sailor
had gone.  Making a detour, she entered the street
from another direction, timing her arrival at the door
so that the clumsy figure rolled by just after she had
bidden Simone enter the shop.  Zacchary stood a few
paces away, chewing a straw, his eyes in the opposite
direction.  Marion followed the sailor a couple of
yards.

'Jack!'

The man stopped and turned, a smile lighting up
his features as he recognised the speaker.  Marion
looked affectionately up into the face of the sailor-boy
of her childhood's days.  The rough beard he had
assumed for a disguise changed him greatly.  But
the merry eyes were the same.  Marion went straight
to the point.

'This is a great danger for you, Jack.'

Poole nodded.  'I couldn't stay down along, or
sail, or anything, with Master Roger in gaol, Mistress
Marion.'

'I guessed it.  We must not be seen talking.  Listen.
He shall escape.  I need help at the other end.  You
can do nothing here.  Bob Tregarthen is lying in the
Catt Water.  Take a boat down there, and persuade
him to sail down to Garth and wait off the headland.
Tell him to be prepared for a voyage; ready to sail
at a minute's notice, night or day.  You understand?'

Jack hesitated.  'I'd a sight rather bide along o'
you, Mistress.  How be you going to manage the
escape?  'Tis over dangerous for a maid.'

'Never mind me.  I have my plans.  But don't
you see, Jack, you are an added danger?  They are
sure to trace you here.  When did you escape from
Bodmin?'

'Three days ago.  And when I heard from Charity
what was doing, I couldn't sail, I couldn't.  Let me
bide and help 'ee, Mistress!'

Marion reconsidered the position.  She shook her
head.  'No,' she repeated, 'you make an added
danger.  And I need your help at the other end.
Go now, Jack.  I'm so afraid you may be recognised.
Give my dear love to Charity.  And Jack—have a
care.  Yonder renegade may be on the watch.'

'I know all about he,' said Jack.  'I only ask just
to set eyes on un.'

'Then good-bye, Jack.  And—and God bless you.'

'God bless ee kindly, Mistress Marion,' came Poole's
husky tones, as he turned away.

Marion glanced hastily along the street.  Only a
few men lounged at the other end, outside a small inn,
and these, she saw to her infinite relief, had been
joined by Zacchary, and were looking at something
in the distance, something Zacchary was pointing
out.  'Dear old Zacchary!' commented Marion.
'He has his wits about him.'

She entered the shop.  Simone was arguing on the
subject of the colour of ribbons with the shopkeeper
and his assistant, who were fully absorbed in the
conversation, to the exclusion of any affairs in the street.

'Here comes my mistress,' said Simone.  'I was
saying, Mademoiselle, that no lady could wear a ribbon
of such a vile texture as that, and the colour of this is
too garish.  What do you think, Mademoiselle?'

Gravely Marion went into the subject of the silk,
and finally bought a couple of yards and went out.
She turned straight up the hill towards her aunt's
house.





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.. _`THE GAOL YARD`:

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   CHAPTER XIX


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE GAOL YARD

.. vspace:: 2

Across the candles of the supper table Mistress
Keziah looked curiously at her niece, and the
footman behind her chair could scarcely attend to his
duties for watching the face of the young mistress.
Her eyes were bright, spots of colour showed in her
cheeks; she was wearing a beautiful London gown;
Mistress Keziah knew that for some reason Marion
was calling up her defences.  'For a complete actress,'
mused the old woman, 'give me a girl who is at her
wits' end with anxiety and grief.'

Marion was talking of her childhood at Garth, of
the various activities that had filled her days.  From
that she went Lightly back to Kensington, and thence
again to Cornwall.  She appeared to be relishing
greatly the prospect of returning to Garth.

'Only my promise to stay with you a sennight would
keep me, Aunt Keziah.  I am suddenly become
mightily homesick.  I want the stables and the
horses—my horses—the boats and the beach.  I declare I
should like to look at my dolls again, and my skipping
rope.  Oh yes! and my bow and arrows.  Ah, those
days!  'Tis a pity you never learned to shoot, Aunt
Keziah.  I remember your telling me you had never
handled a bow.  If only you had one, 'twould have
pleased me mightily to set up a target in the garden.
Did I tell you,' she went on, 'that Colonel Sampson
and Captain Beckenham took me to an archery one
day, and I beat my lord the captain by a good two
yards?'

Marion laughed merrily.  The footman, his wits
dissolved in admiration, stored up the gossip for the
kitchen, and wondered where a bow was to be had.
He would like greatly to watch the young lady shoot.

'Who is Captain Beckenham?' asked Mistress Keziah.

'One of Aunt Constance's friends, in Her Majesty's
suite.  He was mightily kind.  He risked the Queen's
displeasure in absenting himself to ride with us over
the heath past Hounslow, giving me to understand it
was for the sake of my *beaux yeux*.  But,' added
Marion, a smile coming and going, 'in the coach I
discovered that my own were outshone by Simone's.
He amused me somewhat, that young man.  He
changes from one weighty affection to another as
lightly as he changes a coat.'

Mistress Keziah, following her niece's lead, talked in
a similar vein until the cloth was removed, and William
departed.  As he closed the door Marion leaned back
in her chair, and drew a long breath.  Mistress Keziah
waited.  Marion had nothing more to say.  In
silence the two finished their meal, the girl toying with
the sweets on her plate.  She followed her aunt into
her little sitting-room upstairs, where Simone, who
always ate her meals in her own chamber, had been
bidden to wait.  From a stool by the window in the
dusk-filled room, Simone looked anxiously at her
mistress.  The evening had been heavy for her.  She
had once more been counting the hours; the lingering
daylight showed her face wan and grave.

'Well,' said the old lady drily, as she sat down,
''twas mightily pretty, all that talk.  What did it
mean?'

'It means, Aunt Keziah, that by fair means or foul,
I must have a bow and arrows.'

Mistress Keziah stared at her niece.

'I am not demented,' said Marion, 'though I see
you think so.  I sought the town this afternoon.
There seems not to be such a thing in Exeter.  But
there must be, if one knew where to look.'

'So that is why you discoursed on the subject so
pleasantly that William spilt the gravy all over the
trencher.'

'Just that, Aunt Keziah.  If William knows any
one who possesses a bow, 'twill be forthcoming for the
young mistress's amusement.'

Simone and Mistress Keziah stared afresh at the
speaker.  Marion had given no inkling of her motives
for wandering about the town during the afternoon,
nor had she explained her reason for making the
purchases she had.

'But why?'

'To kill the sentry?' queried Simone.

'To shoot sparrows, *ma petite*.  See,' Marion looked
round, 'just glance over the gallery, Simone, lest some
one should be within earshot.'

'No one is about,' said Mistress Keziah.  'William
is holding forth in the kitchen on the subject of Mistress
Marion.  'Tis long since he has had such entertainment.'

Simone returned to her seat.  Her face was grave.

'See,' said Marion again, speaking slowly, looking
from one to the other of her hearers.  'To the end of
an arrow may be attached a length of fine silk; to
that a length of stout thread; to that'—Simone gave
a little cry—'a length of fine cord; then a rope; to
the end of the rope may be tied a package containing
a note and a file.  Simone, if you go into hysterics, I
shall put you to bed!'

Simone was struggling between tears and laughter,
her Gallic temperament suddenly roused in a helpless
emotion.  She clasped her hands over her face.  'Oh,
Mademoiselle!  Mademoiselle!' she sobbed.  'I see
it plainly.  He will be saved!  Oh!'

Aunt and niece were looking at each other.  'Well?'
said Marion.

'*Mes compliments*,' returned Mistress Keziah
quietly.  A gleam of pride flashed in her keen old eyes.
She looked from her niece to Simone, who was rocking
to and fro on her stool.  'Any one would know you
were not English, Simone!' she said, with a touch
of asperity.

'*Eh bien*!' sobbed the girl, 'one may love one's
mistress, even if one is not English.'  Simone was
completely undone by the swift reaction of four days
and nights of anxiety and hopelessness.  Marion laid
a soothing hand on her shoulder.  By degrees she
calmed down.

'But where can one be got, Aunt Keziah?'

'So.  Before shooting the arrow of fate it is first
necessary to have a bow.'

'And any day after to-morrow the courier may return.'

Silence fell on the little room.

'You did not say how you would do it, Mademoiselle,'
presently said Simone.

'From the little window across into the cell, through
the bars.'

'But, Mademoiselle, can you do such a thing?  It
seems incredible, at that distance, through those
narrow bars!'

'I know not whether any one can do such a thing or
not.  But I am going to do it.'

'That is the right spirit,' commented Mistress
Keziah, her eyes gleaming again.  'There speaks
victory.  But taking your skill for granted, my dear,
how avoid the risk of shooting the lad himself?'

'I have thought of that.  We had a trick, Roger and
I,' Marion made a swift gesture with one hand, 'like
that, when we were shooting together in the country,
a gesture that told the one who was marking where
arrows fell to stand to the left or right out of danger as
the other changed his aim.  I will make the sign when
they are out in the yard.  There will be one second in
the hour when the sentry is not looking, as there was
to-day.  Also, to make sure, I am going now to
note what his cell looks like by candlelight.  I feel
sure that if Roger has sixpence in his pocket he
will have a candle to-night.  He will want us to see
him.  You may be quite sure Roger is thinking hard,
as well as ourselves, and doing all he can.  He will
know I am not here in Exeter just now simply to
take the air.'

Mistress Keziah pondered a while.

'Suppose your silk catches in the trees?'

'It cannot.  The window is too high.'

'Will it not interfere with the flight of the arrow,
Mademoiselle?'

Marion shook her head.  'The silk I bought is
tough, but very fine.'

'But,' said Simone, her brows puckered, 'I do not
understand, Mademoiselle.  How will you dispose of
the silk so that it will run easily?'

'I see you are not a sailor, Simone,' remarked
Marion.

Simone looked puzzled.  Mistress Keziah smiled.

'In which storey is Roger's cell?'

'The first.'

'Are you sure the boundary wall of the gaol will not
be in your way?'

'Quite sure, Aunt Keziah.  This house is much
loftier than the prison, and the little window is under
the eaves.'

''Tis a hare-brained scheme, and would e'en seem
hopeless,' remarked Mistress Keziah, 'had I not a
lurking feeling that fortune favours the brave.  I
must think it over.  But, dear, you have been some
months at least without any great practice.  Are
you sure of your aim?  It will be in the dark, I
suppose?'

'At dawn; just before three o'clock.'

Mistress Keziah nodded.  'Better so.  But as I
said, 'tis a good distance for a shot.'

'Close on a hundred yards,' said Marion.  'I
measured this morning.  And to-morrow I shall
practise in the garden.'

'Suppose there is a wind, Mademoiselle,' said Simone
presently.

Marion clasped her hands.  'I pray not,' she said
simply.  'That would be difficult.  But,' brightening
again, 'I have certainly shot in a wind before now.
Do not let us think of——'

'And in all this,' burst in Simone, laying her hand
on her mistress's knee, 'you have forgotten the sentry!'

Marion stroked back a strand of the glossy dark hair.

'I have forgotten nothing, *mon amie*.  The sentry
at night will, I expect—we will ascertain
presently—patrol the yard as his comrade does by day.  The
sentry is of course the greatest difficulty.  I shall
have to time my venture when he is at the far end
of the yard.  That,' added Marion naïvely, 'is where
the speed of an arrow is a fortunate thing.  Once the
arrow is in the cell', the cord and rope can be drawn in
while the sentry is walking round the buildings.'

'And should he hear, Mademoiselle?'

'He shall not hear.'

Simone glanced at Mistress Keziah.  Marion
intercepted the look.  'Dear aunt,' she said gently, 'I
cannot deny that there is danger of detection.  But—his
need is greater than any peril we run.  And should
the plan fail, and be discovered, 'tis I alone who am
the culprit.  I shall make a full avowal.  You shall
not suffer, Aunt Keziah!'

'Hoity toity!' said Mistress Keziah.  'What
happens in my house is my business, I trow!  And
who in Exeter, do you suppose, is going to lay a finger
on me?'

Remembering the lady's words of warning to herself
on the previous day, Simone was mute.  She sat
folding and unfolding a pleat in her gown, tears welling
into her eyes again.  There was something that would
not bear thinking about in these two, one old and one
young, who thus vied with each other for the honour
of taking blame.  To Simone's relief, for her control
was fast weakening, William's step was heard in the
gallery.

'Here comes a dish of tea,' said Mistress Keziah
tranquilly.  'Open the door, Simone.  And fetch me
the cards from my chamber,' she added as the footman
entered.  'Will you join me in a game, my dear?'

'I have been wanting to,' said Marion.  'Aunt
Constance taught me a new one in Kensington.  I
should like to show you.'

Mistress Keziah dealt the cards, and Marion arranged
her own share on the little table William had drawn
close to their chairs.  Simone seated herself at a distance
with her needlework.  When William returned later
for the tray, to all appearance a lively game was afoot.

'He will not come back?' asked Marion, after
William had departed.

'Not unless I should ring.  You were saying?'

'I was saying, Aunt Keziah, that I should feel
vastly more comfortable if you would go away.  Go
down to Garth, to my father.'

'For one so quick-witted, you are singularly
stupid,' remarked the lady, with a touch of the
imperiousness that reminded Marion of the personage
she had first known and feared.  'I must stay here
to cover your sudden departure with the lad.  No,
leave my comings and goings to me, my fair general.
See you to your own and Roger's.  Simone and I will
follow you to Garth.'

Marion rose and bade her aunt good-night without
any further argument, and accompanied by Simone
stole along the gallery to the little chamber under the
eaves.  The moon was breaking from a bank of golden
haze in the eastern sky as Marion gently put back the
shutter and peered out.  The silence of the night lay
about the garden, and save for one lighted niche the
gaol was in darkness.  As Marion had surmised,
Roger was playing his part in the game whose nature
he could only guess.  A candle stood on his table,
which he had drawn out of vision so that its flame
should not blind the eyes of the watcher to the
disposition of the room.  He himself, sitting at the
table, reading, was partly visible to Marion's eager
eyes.  But what she had longed to see, and was
comforted to behold, was the end of the plank bed half
way along the bare wall.  She had been secretly
haunted by the possibility that her arrow might alight
on the sleeper, should he be sleeping.  The corner of
the room which was her target was empty.

Cautiously Marion withdrew her head.  The heavy
footsteps of the unseen sentry sounded, making the
corner of the buildings.  Like his comrade during the
day, he steadily patrolled the wide stretch of yard,
coming from time to time round the gable end to take
in the narrow patch at the south front of the gaol.
Knowing that soon the moon must lie full both on that
side of the prison and on the little eastward casement,
and fearing the eyes of the sentry, Marion half closed
the little shutter.  There was a sharp creak she could
not avoid, and watching through the crack she saw
that Roger had heard the noise.  He rose and looked
upward through his bars.  Then, either fearful of the
sentry's comments on his candle, or, as Marion guessed,
content that he had been seen, he put out the light
just as the sentry turned the corner.

Marion watched the dark form of the sentry as he
walked the length of the building, turned, and heavily
stamped back.  He disappeared; presently the
measured beat was heard in the yard beyond.  A minute
later the moon swung clear of the curtain of haze.

More cautiously this time Marion moved the shutter
back, then thrust out her head in the clear light.
Immediately a hand stole from between the bars
across the way, and waved a stealthy greeting.  Marion
raised her own hand and pointed to the moon.  Her
finger travelled in a mimic motion of the moon
crossing the sky, once—twice.  Then swiftly she gave the
gesture of warning which she had mentioned to her
aunt.  She repeated the motion.  The hand across
made the signal of assent.  Then, greatly daring, after
a rapid survey of the gaol yard where the invisible
sentry was still tramping, Marion gave in dumb show
the action of shooting an arrow.

The moon was full on her face as she moved.  Simone
caught her breath.  There were other cells in the south
front of the gaol: other eyes might well be watching
the little play.  The hand across waved again.  In the
gloom of the building Roger's face, a white patch
crossed by the bars, was clearly visible.  The sound of the
sentry came nearer.  Again Marion closed the shutter.

'He understood,' she whispered.  'He nodded.
Did you see?'

Simone gripped her arm.  'Come away, Mademoiselle.
Do not attempt to look again.  The moon
is on this window as clear as day.  I am afraid.  There
may be other eyes yonder, as well as Master Roger's.

'Not so,' replied her companion.  'But we will go
now.  'Tis better, perhaps.'

The two crept back along the passage to Marion's
chamber.  In the light of the sconces Simone looked
anxiously at her mistress.  Marion smiled.

'You are over nervous, Simone.  Think of those
men we saw brawling and fighting in the yard to-day.
Are they the kind, think you, to watch the rising of
the moon at an hour when all the town is sleeping?
They are more likely to be snoring on their plank
beds.'  She stopped abruptly as she thought of Roger's
couch in the dark little cell.  'Still,' she said,
commenting on her own thoughts, 'a plank couch is no matter
when one's sojourn is short.  Now we are going to
bed, Simone.  My aunt said there was no need for you
to attend her to-night.  There is much to do to-morrow.
Above all, do not forget to oil the joints and
hinges of the shutters, yonder, early in the morning.'

Marvelling at her mistress's light-spiritedness,
Simone went through her usual nightly duties.  Soon
the two were in their beds.  Marion's hopeful mood,
which assured her of victory and overlooked the
hazards of the battle, carried her across the spell of
silence and thoughtfulness which came when she laid
her head upon the pillow, safely into the
unconsciousness of sleep.

Simone, wide-eyed, listened to the steady breathing
through the open door of her own room, and marvelled
again.  And in the next chamber Mistress Keziah lay,
conscious of the dull weight of age pressing on body
and soul alike.  An hour's quiet consideration had
roused in her a strong doubt of the wisdom of Marion's
plan, a deep scepticism of its success.  She was
oppressed by the sense of the risks the girl ran, but
could think of no measure that would make her desist
from the attempt.  It was Marion's safety against a
slender chance of Roger's life; and Marion was not the
one to be deterred by a thought of peril for herself.
Of her own share she thought little; she had lived her
life, and Marion's was hardly begun.

What she had been able to do, she had done.  A
letter addressed to Lady Fairfax lay on her table.
With the early light it should be despatched to London.
It was not only for Roger that a reprieve might be
wanted.





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.. _`ZACCHARY'S QUEST`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XX


.. class:: center medium bold

   ZACCHARY'S QUEST

.. vspace:: 2

Zacchary was standing by Mistress Keziah's
chair, tears running down his cheeks.  He
had at last learned the secret of Marion's visit to
Exeter.

For some time Mistress Keziah allowed him to talk,
easing himself thus, she knew, of his grief and distress
concerning Roger; and as she waited, Zacchary
poured out a string of broken reminiscences from which
the old lady unconsciously built up a picture of Marion's
and Roger's childhood on the hillside at Garth.

She could well have wept herself.  The morning
had shown her no grounds for any reasonable hope;
Zacchary's instant scorn for Marion's plans had
secretly added to her own misgivings.  Zacchary
had scarcely, indeed, paid any heed to the scheme for
Roger's release.  In his mind it was a foregone failure:
to him Master Roger was beyond all human redeeming.
When at last he paused in his jumbled tale, and was
staring sorrowfully out into the garden, Mistress
Keziah brought her attention to the point at issue.

'I sent for you, Zacchary, because you are the only
one we can trust with this secret.  And also, you are
the only one who can search for the bow and arrows.

'A bean't for doing aught of the kind, Mistress,'
Zacchary rejoined, a stubbornness in his manner.
''Tis clean gone foolishness, the like as a never heard.
More seemly 'twould be to set the horses to the coach
and take the little maid home.  Arrows, indeed!
'Tis the wild fancy of a maid who've set herself to do
a man's work.  'Tain't no job for Mistress Marion.
If you'd told me two days gone, Mistress, me and
yonder Tony would have done something, and Reuben.'

Mistress Keziah controlled her rising impatience.
She had not dreamed that Zacchary would rebel.
At once she realised that the old man would have to
be argued with, not commanded.  His very virtues
on which she had counted, his loyalty, his love for
Marion and Roger, his fifty years' service at Garth,
became a barrier that threatened the advancement
of Marion's hopes.

'Don't you see, Zacchary, Master Roger is suffering
this fate because he tried to help?  Would the lad
himself like it, think you, that strangers should be
imperilled for his sake?  Would he not rather die thrice
over than allow Tony and Reuben to be drawn into
gaol?  And to leave that side of the question, what
chance of safety has a secret shared with two such
men?  How much opportunity have you had of
judging their characters?  They are not of your
county: a Londoner is never trusted by West country
folk.  A week you have passed in their company;
they have proved able grooms on the road, they are
mightily pleasant in the kitchen.  Is that a reason why
they should be entrusted with a mission which means
life or death to a man they have never seen, and is of
such exceeding danger, that should it fail, they might
hang at the next assize?  'Tis a job for a man's
friends.'

Zacchary, convinced on the point, but unwilling to
own it, was silent.  His slow peasant brain was working.

'If a body had ever heard of such a thing afore as
bows and arrows to get a man out of gaol,' he said, after
a while, 'I'd have some patience thinking on it.'

'By the mercy of Providence,' retorted the old lady,
her eyes flashing in her angular old face, ''tis not every
day in the week that a lad like Roger Trevannion lies
within an hour of death, as you might say, and no help
forthcoming.  Extreme cases need extreme measures.
For my part, I am willing to take all risks to help my
niece.  I had not expected to find an enemy in you,
Zacchary.  One might think you were unwilling to
hold out to Master Roger a slender chance of life.'

''Tis the little maid I be thinking of now,' said
Zacchary abruptly.  'If so be her's taken too, what be
I to say to the Admur'l?  Her was left in my care in
Lunnon.  'Tis a hundred to one Master Roger will go
just the same, and liker than not her'll be in gaol at
the end on 't.'

'Give her the hundredth chance.  And remember,
she is a quick-witted, brave woman, playing a woman's
game.  You are always thinking of her as a little child.
And,' added the lady, with an outward show that
arrogantly hid her feelings, 'leave her safety to me.
Do you think my niece, Admiral Penrock's daughter,
will easily be imprisoned?'

Zacchary glanced at the old lady.  'You'm some
like the Admur'l, Mistress.  Well.  How'm you going
to hide the lad?'

'We are not going to hide him.  To-morrow morning,
early, you will take out two horses and wait outside
the town.  If you are seen, why, you are taking one
of my greys up to the Stows.  They are for travelling
a spell, and one of their chestnuts has fallen lame.
That is clear?'

Zacchary nodded gravely.  'And then?  Be the
lad going to take refuge on the moor?'

'Mistress Marion and Master Roger are going to ride
to Garth.'

'To Garth!'  The old man's voice showed his consternation.
He stared at Mistress Keziah, as if unable
to believe his own ears.  'To Garth?  To the one
place where every man, woman and child knows un?
'Tis sheer folly, Mistress!'

'That is just the reason why he will be safer there
than anywhere.  Because, as you say, it is sheer folly.
They will search Exeter.  They will beat the coast
and the river.  They will expect him to take to sea.
Garth is the one place where they will never dream of
looking for him.'

On Zacchary's slow mind there dawned the realisation
that by its madness there was hope in the project laid
down.  Mistress Keziah, watching his face, knew that
the time was come to drive hard.  She looked at the clock.

'You have been here an hour and a half while you
should have been at work.  Leave all the rest.  We
will talk of it again later.  Mistress Marion is out just
now, seeking some purchase she needs.  You can
speak with her afterwards if you wish.  Say nothing
in the kitchen.  Go first into the inn on the street.
Get into conversation, and learn if there is any one
who makes bows and arrows in Exeter.  There must
be some such, although archery has become but an
idle pastime.  And remember there are only a few
hours.  If only I could make you understand,
Zacchary——'  Mistress Keziah's voice broke, and
tears stood in her eyes, 'you are the only help and
hope we have.  You, and no other, stand in between
Master Roger and his death.'

Zacchary straightened himself.  'If there's one
to be found, I'll find un, Mistress.'

'There is one to be found somewhere.  But I have
never been directly interested in archery.  And the
servants, who might know, being native to the town,
I dare not send urgently without exciting curiosity.
Mistress Marion went as far as she dared last night
that way.  We have to think of afterwards, of
protecting her from any shadow of suspicion.'

'Ay,' said Zacchary.  'I heard on 't.  Her turned
William's head and no mistake.  A's talked of nothing
but bows and arrows and the mistress's eyes since.
A little thought what the little maid was up to.'

Mistress Keziah went to a drawer, and took out her
purse.  'Here is money.  Spare nothing.  But do
not show any need of urgency.  And above all, be
careful in the kitchen.'

Zacchary went out without further words, and
Mistress Keziah sank back in her chair.

It was close on eleven o'clock.  She looked out into
the garden, where, in the earlier part of the morning,
Marion had been spending, to all appearance, an idle
hour wandering to and fro with Simone at her side.
Secretly Marion had counted the yards in the trim
walks and grassy stretches until she had fixed on two
slender trees as a target.  The trunks stood close
together, twin growths from one root.  A certain spot,
which Marion and Simone committed to memory,
not daring to set a sign there, lest the servants should
be watching, marked the distance of a hundred yards
from the trees.  Marion knew that if she could shoot
at that distance into the crevice between the rising
stems, she could shoot between the bars of Roger's
cell.  She determined to practise both by day and at
night, when the servants were in bed; in the daylight
shooting casually at any mark; in the dark or half
light aiming at her target.

Everything was ready.  The rope had been found
by Marion in the harness room where her aunt had
directed her; the file she had taken from the
coachman's tool box.  A note to Roger, directing him to
scale the wall and run along the road to the courtyard
gate, where she would be waiting him, was written
and locked in her box, ready to be tied to the rope,
with the file, later on.  To please her mistress, Simone
had laid out her riding habit.  Her cloak was rolled
into a bundle, to be strapped to the saddle.  Everything
was ready, so Marion had said, when she had
kissed her aunt before setting out to buy a length of
cord to take the place of the unsatisfactory piece she
had found in her aunt's boxes.  It only remained now
for Mistress Keziah to send Zacchary to find a bow
and arrows, a task which Zacchary could perform
without any suspicion.  He only needed to go to the
New Inn for a pint of ale and get into conversation
with mine host.  All was quite clear in Marion's mind.

Mistress Keziah could still feel the girl's caress,
could still see the suppressed eagerness in her face.
The old woman sat motionless, only glancing at the
clock from time to time.  Already the day seemed
interminable.  The June sunshine bore too hotly
into the room; she drew the shutter half way across
and sat down again.  There was a tension in the air of
the house which, added to the languor of the day,
weighed on her spirits.  She dreaded Marion's return,
dreaded Zacchary's return.  As she had said, archery
was merely a pastime, the implements of the craft not
being found easily like the contents of the gunsmith's
rooms.  Quite likely William might unearth a bow and
arrows in the course of the week—everything would
happen just too late.  And she was afraid to speak to
William lest, later on, he should begin to think and
remember.  As she had said to Zacchary, Marion had
gone as far in that direction as she dared.

All too soon the door opened, and Marion entered.

'Has he got it, Aunt Keziah?'

Mistress Keziah looked up at the face bending over
her.  Marion had thrown aside her hood.  Her white
muslin dress seemed to wrap her in a cool serenity.
It seemed incredible, thought Mistress Keziah, looking
from the eyes to the hair, and back to the serious,
sweet mouth, that misfortune should lay its blight on
that countenance.

'He has not yet returned,' quietly said the old lady.

Marion's eyes grew wide.  'But there has been
time,' she faltered.

'He is scarcely an hour gone, my child.  Sit down.'  Mistress
Keziah related the story of her conversation
with Zacchary.  Before the two had finished talking
midday struck, and the servant came to announce
dinner.

'Already?' said Marion dully.

Mistress Keziah said nothing.  There was nothing
to be said, nothing to be done.

Marion sat on the arm of her aunt's chair, and laid
her golden head beside the grey one.  'May we not
wait for dinner till Zacchary returns?  I could not
eat anything.  I was hungry before, but not now.'

All the life had gone out of her voice.  The reaction
Mistress Keziah had dreaded was upon her.  Marion
had found it comparatively easy to pass the morning,
her thoughts and activities engaged in the immediate
moment.  Now she found herself once more faced by
the ordeal of waiting in suspense.

Mistress Keziah roused herself.  'You must eat,
and eat well.  Otherwise your nerves will weaken.
Come along!  A battle lies ahead.  This is but a game.
You played it well enough last night.'

Presently aunt and niece faced each other across the
board, and Marion struggled to recover something of
her everyday speech from that deep place of silence
into which all her faculties had seemed to fall.  Mistress
Keziah played her own part well.  When Marion,
suddenly finding words drying on her lips, ceased to
speak, Mistress Keziah took up some tale or anecdote.
William, watching his two ladies, was unaware of
anything amiss.  Mistress Marion was quiet, certainly,
but that was the way of maids, all bubble and froth
one day, a dark pool the next.  Dish after dish came
on the table, and Mistress Keziah failed not to pile her
niece's plate.

Slowly the meal wore itself out.  A casual question
from Mistress Keziah concerning the stables elicited
from the unsuspecting William the news that Zacchary
was still abroad in the town.

As Marion followed her aunt upstairs, half-past one
chimed from the church near by.  Marion went to her
own room.  Simone, according to her habit, had
eaten her dinner upstairs, and was waiting for her
mistress.  Marion stood still in the middle of the room,
her hands pressing back the hair from her forehead.

'Is it possible,' she said, 'possible, that in all Exeter
there is no such thing as a bow and arrow?'

Simone felt tongue-tied.  'Surely not, Mademoiselle,'
was all she could find to say.

Her mistress moved about restlessly for a while,
then sat down, and taking up the needlework with
which Simone had been busied, stitched for a short
time.  The French girl quietly found other occupation,
and made no remark when Marion flung down the
sheet and went into the next room.  There she turned
over her riding habit.  Again she passed through
her fingers the long line of silk which Simone had bound
on to the cord in such a way that no roughness of
joining was left which might catch on any surface.
With the same dexterity Simone had attached the
cord to the rope.  Lifelessly Marion laid down the
lengths.  To and fro she paced the little room.  A
fever was slowly mounting to her brain.  She dared
not trust herself to seek the eastward window.  To
wait: to do nothing but wait, within a few hours of
doom—could she endure it?

She went back into her own chamber, and silently
held out a hand to Simone.  Together the two passed
out into the garden.  To and fro under the trees they
paced, and from time to time they fell within the line
of the shutter niche of Mistress Keziah's window.
Looking down on the girl's face, Mistress Keziah
suddenly felt herself to be an old, old woman.  Wiping
away a few tears, she strove to consider afresh the
problem of the necessities for Marion's plan.  Failing
the main road, were there no by-paths?

A little later she opened the casement, and called
down to Marion.

'I have just thought, my dear,' she said, when the
girl entered her room, 'that I should like to drive out
to see Mrs. Burroughs.  Her house is but three miles
out of the town.  There are children there,' she added
diffidently.  'Would you care to accompany me?'
The rest she left unsaid, but Marion understood.  She
rang her aunt's bell, and Mistress Keziah ordered the
coach.

Half an hour later the horses were climbing the steep
lane out of Exeter.

At the house they descended, and were welcomed
by a pleasant-faced woman, the daughter of a girl
friend of Mistress Keziah's.  Very soon the visitor
mentioned the children, and a boy and girl of ten
and twelve years were summoned to the room.

Marion devoted herself to the newcomers with such
friendliness that presently she was borne off to see the
stables and the ponies, the trout brook at the bottom
of the field, then back to the house to the play-room to
look at their treasures.  By dint of adroit questioning
she learnt the favourite pastime of the two.  The boy,
talking eagerly to his guest, told her proudly of his
skill in archery.  At thirty yards he had hit the target.
His sister, standing by Marion's side, obviously lost
in admiration of such a visitor as rarely came her way,
noted Marion's changing colour.

'I used to shoot once upon a time,' she said.  'Let
me see your bow.  I should like to try again.'

Then the little girl, amazed, saw the 'beautiful
lady' suddenly stiffen.  She could not think what had
happened: merely that her brother had explained that
his bow was broken, and another was promised by his
father for his birthday.

Later on, with a child at either hand, Marion
descended to the sitting-room.  Mistress Keziah's glance
read the story in her face.  Soon she rose to bid her
hostess adieu, Marion's cold lips framing what answers
she could to the lady's genial parting words.

As the coach rolled up to the courtyard gate, the
old woman laid her hand on Marion's.  She had
forborne to question her, and the girl had remained
silent on the homeward drive.  Marion returned the
pressure without speaking: she recognised the
challenge in her aunt's touch.

In the hall, Mistress Keziah turned and spoke
indifferently to the servant who opened the door, asking
had there been visitors in her absence.  Then, as she
set foot on the stairs, Marion walking behind, the old
lady paused.  'Has Zacchary returned yet?'

'Not yet, Mistress.'

In the stillness, the churches in the town chimed
six.  Marion went to her own room, and closed the
door.  A kind of stupor seemed to fall on the house.

Just before supper time, Zacchary walked heavily
up the stairs and knocked at Mistress Keziah's door.
Hearing the lady's voice, he entered.

'No good, Mistress,' he blurted out.

Mistress Keziah gripped the arms of her chair as
Zacchary told the tale of his fruitless search.  After
much talk he had heard from mine host of the New
Inn the name of a man—a friend of the innkeeper—who
was the possessor of a fine bow.  Saying nothing
to the innkeeper, Zacchary had found out the man,
only to learn that the 'fine bow' was a valued
heirloom, not at any price to be sold or lent.  From the
possessor he had heard of another: a similar result.
Then he was told of a man whose father used to make
bows and arrows, and who, it was believed, occasionally
carried on the work himself.  By that time several
hours had passed.  The man in question now lived on
a farm some five miles out of the town.  Thither
Zacchary had dragged his old legs.  The man was ill
in his bed: an ague, Zacchary said.  There was no
bow to be bought.  Nor did the man's wife know of
any other maker.  Archery was little thought of in
these days save for children's play.  True enough,
there must be bows in some one's possession in Exeter.
But the day was gone.

'What be I to say to the little maid?' queried
Zacchary, his voice husky.  He was worn out with
sorrow, and the fatigue of walking in the hot day.

'I will tell her,' said Mistress Keziah from her chair.
'You may go, Zacchary.  You need rest and food.
Tell them to keep supper waiting till I ring.'

Zacchary turned, to find Marion standing in the
doorway.

'I heard, Aunt Keziah,' she said.  'Thank you very
much, Zacchary.'  She walked quietly back to her
room.

At the peculiar, calm tones of her niece's voice,
Mistress Keziah shivered as if a cold wind had struck
her.  She got up stiffly from her chair, and walked
slowly into Marion's chamber.  The girl was standing,
her hands locked, staring dully out into the garden.
Without speaking, Mistress Keziah sat down by the
window.  She did not look at the motionless figure.
After a while she held out a hand.  Slowly Marion
came, and sinking on the floor, buried her face in the
old woman's lap.  The wrinkled hands passed slowly
to and fro over the shining hair.

The sun sank low behind the trees.  Mistress
Keziah's tears had stayed.  Marion still crouched,
dry-eyed, her face hidden, motionless save for a
convulsive shudder which shook her from time to time.

Neither heard the sound of light footsteps in the
gallery.  The door burst open and closed again.

'Mademoiselle!'

There was a new ring in Simone's voice.  Slowly
Marion raised her blanched face.  Simone was pouring
out a story in mixed French and English, plentifully
watered with hysterical tears.  The name of the good
William ran in and out of the story.  Marion scarcely
heeded her.  She was staring at a bow and a sheaf of
arrows Simone had laid at her feet.





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.. _`DAWN`:

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   CHAPTER XXI


.. class:: center medium bold

   DAWN

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The gaol buildings and yard showed dim in the
diffused light.  A cluster of small clouds
clung to the face of the moon, and down in the west lay
a grey bank which rose imperceptibly, its edges caught
by the hidden glow.  From time to time a cat's-paw
of wind tapped the branches in Mistress Keziah's
garden, breaking the dead calm of night with the
rustle of the leaves.  The storm was coming.  For
days the heavy heat had been gathering for a break.

In Marion's room there were whispering voices.
Mistress Keziah, fully dressed, herself was
superintending the robing of Marion for a long and arduous
ride.  The light of the candles on the dressing-table
fell on the dark, shapely form, the bodice
buttoned close, the wide skirt falling away.  The
gleaming hair was securely bound in a long plait, and
then knotted at the nape of the neck.  On the bed,
beside the gloves and whip, lay the cavalier riding hat
with its long, soft plume, which Lady Fairfax had given
to her niece.  The habit adjusted, Simone knelt and
drew on the long riding boots, reaching almost to
the knee, wide in the leg, tapering down to the
foot.

Simone rose, and surveyed her mistress from head
to heel.  Her teeth caught on her trembling lip.

'Are you sure your arms are not held in any way,
my dear?' asked Mistress Keziah.  'You have
enough freedom of movement?'

'Quite, I think,' said Marion gently.  'Now do
let me go, Aunt Keziah.'

''Tis not yet the dawn.'

Simone blew out the candles, and threw the shutters
and casements wide.  A sweet air crept into the
room.  At first, after the light of the interior, the
garden seemed filled with the gloom of midnight.
But soon the three at the window were aware of the
shapes of trees, softly grey; of the diffused radiance
of the sinking moon.

Marion leaned far out of the casement, and looked
towards the east.  A faint bar of light lay on the
horizon.  Over the sleeping land that rose beyond the
town a breathing motion seemed to pass, as if Nature
were stirring in her sleep.  Again came the fitful
breeze tossing the leaves in the garden.

'Hark!' said Marion.  'The cocks are crowing
on the hill.  Dearest, dearest Aunt Keziah, bless me,
and let me go!'

There was a tremor in the clear voice, but outwardly
Marion was calm.  Simone had already stolen away.

Mistress Keziah wrapped her arms about the comely
figure and pressed trembling kisses on the soft face.
A few broken words fell from her lips; then she dropped
her arms and turned away.  With one backward look,
Marion went out of the room.  The old woman sat
down and hid her face.  She dared not follow to that
little eastward room; she dared not witness the
speeding of that silken thread.

Across the gallery Marion stole, her wide skirt
gathered up on her arm.  She listened awhile, leaning
over the rail.  There was no sound in the dark, sleeping
house.  For fully an hour the servants would be abed.
Marion gently opened the double doors.  A pitch
darkness lay on the narrow passage.  She groped her way
by the wall, and presently climbed the dusty stair.

Simone was crouching by the little window, the grey
of the coming dawn on her face and hair.  Without
a word she gave place to Marion, and stepping back,
took up the bow, and held an arrow ready in her
trembling fingers.

On the window ledge, where there was nothing to
impede its run, lay the silk thread coiled as sailors
coil a cable in the bows of a boat.  Its upper end was
attached to the arrow Simone held in readiness; the
lower end ran to a corner of the room where the fine
cord was similarly coiled atop the rope.

Marion examined the coils afresh, tested the knot
that tied the silk to the arrow, then, giving the shaft
back to Simone, knelt at the casement.

A dusky light touched the gaol chimneys.  The
niches of the casements were still dark, but Marion
imagined she saw a white patch behind Roger's bars.

'Where is the sentry?' she whispered.

'I do not think he is there, Mademoiselle.  But he
must be, somewhere.'

Simone crouched behind her mistress, and the two
pairs of eyes searched, inch by inch, the dark patches
of the gaol buildings.  Nowhere could they descry any
shape that could be construed into the form of a man.

'Perhaps he is resting at the other side, Mademoiselle.
There must be a bench or something there.'

'He is certainly not in sight,' decided Marion.
'Please God he is asleep on the bench, as you say.'
She glanced anxiously at the sky.  'I dare not wait.'

Her hand shot out of the window, making the
gesture of warning.  She waited.  A dim movement
from the cell showed that her surmise was correct.
Roger was awake and ready.

Freeing her knees from any constraint of her dress,
Marion took her position just inside the casement
a little to the right.  With deliberation that seemed
unending to Simone she fitted the arrow, drew the
bowstring taut, once, twice, thrice.  Then she gathered
herself and rested motionless.  A second later there
was a flashing gleam in the grey air.  Then a sharp
tap.  Aghast, Marion peered forward.  The arrow had
fallen wide, striking the masonry of the wall.

Simone gave a low cry of dismay, and stared at her
mistress.  Deathly white, Marion laid down the bow,
and drew gently on the silken strand.  Somehow the
arrow must be retrieved.

There was a faint scraping noise as the shaft was
drawn backward up the face of the wall.  Twice it
stuck in the masonry.  Marion had a sickening fear
that the silk would not carry the light burden she
eased the length a little, then, with a swift lunge,
played the silk outward, and jerked the arrow up above
the wall.  Rapidly she drew in the silk, hand over
hand.  On the wall of her aunt's garden the arrow
stuck again.  Less carefully Marion drew at it.  The
arrow caught on its point, and dropped sharply down
inside the garden.  At the next tug the silk broke.

'No matter,' said Marion.  ''Tis safe.  Another.'

Carefully the two coiled up the silk again.  Marion
dared not hurry.  Should the length not run easily,
the direction of the arrow would be warped.

Just as she knotted the line to the second arrow,
there was a sound of scraping feet in the gaol yard.
The girls looked at each other in the dim light.

Peering through the casement, Marion saw a dark
figure detach itself from the buildings on the north side.
With his arms wide, the sentry wearily stretched his
body.  He gave himself a little shake, and yawned.
The watchers could plainly hear his loud 'Ha-ho!'  Then
he took up his carbine.  A few notes of a tavern
song came to their ears.  The sentry was waking up.
He shouldered his gun, and marched up and down
the yard.  A minute later he appeared on the south
side, tramped the narrow space between the gaol
and the wall, retraced his steps.  As he turned, Marion
was already fitting the arrow to the bow.  His shuffling
feet echoed in the silence of the enclosure.  There
would be about thirty seconds before he would turn
again.

With hands clasped, shaking from head to foot,
Simone watched the second arrow speed.  Was it
home?  Yes.  No.  Again came the sickening tap.
The shaft had struck the middle of the central bar in
the grating, half an inch wide of the mark.

Once more Marion hauled in the silk.  A deadly
chill gripped her heart.  The sentry's feet sounded
nearer.  A little puff of breeze came again.  The silk
shook as the arrow was drawn up the wall.  Would it
stick in a crevice this time?  For a few seconds,
during which Marion seemed not to breathe, and the
room spun round her, the arrow caught on the stones.
Round the corner came the sound of the sentry's
feet.  Marion leaned far out, and with a swift sideways
motion played out the silk and drew the arrow over
the coping of the wall.  Just as the sentry appeared in
view the shaft fell into the road that bordered the gaol.

'Never mind,' said Simone, through chattering
teeth.  'I will go and get it later.'

As Simone snapped the silk and tied the broken end
to the third arrow, Marion sank back on the floor.
She closed her eyes, and leaned against the wall.  A
faintness had assailed her.  If her courage once fled,
failure would be certain.  Twice she had missed the mark.

The man below trod noisily to and fro on the south
side.  Again came the snatches of the ditty.  Drawing
a long breath, Marion rallied herself, and peered out of
the window.  A white patch showed dimly between the
bars of Roger's cell, immediately over the sentry's
head.  In the grey light, Marion imagined that she saw
Roger's face.  He seemed to be smiling up at the little
window.  To Marion's wild fancy the look was plain to
be seen.  It seemed to say, 'Bravely, little Mawfy!' as
he had said of old when she had just failed of the mark.

Some quickening influence ran through the girl's
blood.  Her dread and fear fell away.  She looked
searchingly down at the cell grating; then, as the man
below swung round, her fingers flashed the signal.
The white patch behind the bars disappeared.

'How many arrows are there, Simone?'

'Twelve.'

'I shall win on the twelfth,' said Marion calmly,
fitting the barb as she spoke.

Marion, kneeling, drew the bowstring taut.  Simone
held herself ready to draw in the silk, her ears strained
for the fall of the arrow on the stones of the yard.  Could
either of them bear the strain of the twelve?  Would
not the sentry hear the faint sounds?  His footsteps
paused in the yard beyond.  Marion held her breath
and waited.  The tramping steps began once more.
Again came the lightning streak through the dim air.
The silk ran out.  There was no tap of the falling shaft.

Marion leaned forward.  The bow dropped from her
nerveless hand.  With a low cry, Simone brushed the
girl aside out of the way of the shining strands.  Roger
was hauling in the silk.  Gently the length passed
through Simone's fingers.

'Hist!' said Marion.  She laid a steadying hand on
the line.  The sentry's footsteps sounded again.  His
clumsy form swung round the corner, the light gleaming
on his barrels.  He paced the length of the south wall,
and stood still: then, laying down his carbine, he
looked searchingly round, and groping in his pocket,
drew out pipe and flint and tinderbox.  Leaning
against the wall, directly under the slender line, he
proceeded to fill and light his pipe.  From time to
time he glanced nervously about.

Again the wave of faintness stole over Marion.  Her
eyes, wide with horror, stared at the man below.
Simone gently took the silk from her.

The sentry was fumbling with his tinderbox.  Would
he look up and see that fine strand, grey as the sky,
stretched over his head?

The world was waking to the dawn.  Thrushes
piped their first notes in the garden.  Puffing at his
pipe, the sentry turned and scanned the eastward
horizon.  Lines of rosy clouds showed themselves,
forerunners of the storm.  Marion clutched Simone's
hands, waiting for the man's eyes to sweep the sky.
She was struggling with an overpowering desire to
scream aloud.  Another minute ticked by.  Three
o'clock struck from the churches in the town.  With
a grunt the man lazily took up his carbine.  He looked
idly at the trees across.  It seemed to Marion's
distorted vision that he stared straight into their little
casement.  For another space he lingered, his legs
wide, leaning against the wall.  Then he straightened
himself.  He shouldered his carbine, and turned away.
There was a stifled cry from Marion as she took the
line with trembling fingers, and gently paid it out.
For a second it slackened over the trees.  Then
the hand at the other side drew in again; and more
and more rapidly as silk gave way to cord.  Before
the sentry had time to pass the corner again, Roger
had secured the package tied on the rope, and drawn
in the trailing end.

There was a dead silence in the little room.
Unheeded the sentry paced the south front, unheeded
tramped out to the wider stretch of the yard.  Simone
said something her companion scarcely noted, and the
next minute Marion was alone.

The first act was over; the second, containing a still
more perilous movement, was about to be played;
of the third—the headlong flight to the west—Marion
did not think at all.

What was going on in the cell yonder?  She fancied
she could see Roger's kneeling figure at the grating;
he was evidently filing the iron near to the base.  The
bars were not very close together; when two were
gone, Roger should be able to get out.  There was
a drop of about fifteen feet.  With the help of the rope
he should be able to let himself noiselessly down.

In reality only a few minutes had passed since the
arrow had reached its mark, but to Marion it seemed
already an hour.  She looked anxiously at the eastern
sky, now suffused with stronger light.  In another
half hour the daylight would be making very plain all
the features of town and country alike.  A few hoarse
notes came to her ears, punctuated by the heavy
footfall of the sentry in the yard.  ''Tis a cheerful
soul!' mused Marion, with a wry smile.  A minute
later the dark form loomed round the corner.

The first drops of rain were falling.  The fitful
breeze of the early morning had strengthened into a
westerly wind.  Instinctively Marion's thoughts began
to dwell on the prospect of the ride over the border in
the face of such a storm as was brewing.

Something moving in the road caught her eye, and
switched back her thoughts to the present.  Simone's
noiseless figure was creeping along in front of the gaol
wall.  The blood rushed to Marion's face.  She had
forgotten that arrow.  Her eyes went alternately from
the sentry's steady movement to the fluttering figure
in the road.  Suppose he should open the wicket?

The light form glided noiselessly back, and Marion
glued her eyes again to the grating of the cell.

As the sentry passed round the corner, Marion bent
forward and listened for the sound of the grinding of
the file.  But not by straining her ears to the utmost
could she hear anything save the steady tramp of the
soldier.  Surely there had been time to file through
those two bars!  In her impatience she forgot that the
prisoner was bound to restrict his efforts to the time
the sentry spent at the back of the building.

As she sat motionless, her whole forces divided
between watching and listening, there was a movement
at her elbow.  Simone was there with her hat and
gloves.  Behind her stood Mistress Keziah, her face
grey in the dawn.

The clocks in the town chimed half-past three.
Marion started.  Half an hour Roger had been filing
those bars.

'Had you not better go down to the gate and be
ready?' said the old lady.

Marion, pulling on her gloves, shook her head.  She
crouched down again, no eyes for the others in the
room, and was unaware that Simone, at a glance from
Mistress Keziah, had quietly stolen away.

Marion felt a cold terror grip her heart.  Could
some one have entered the cell and seen Roger
working—seen the arrow and the silk and the cord?

There was the sentry again, idly walking the
south front.  It seemed hours before he retraced his
steps.

As he turned the corner, Roger's face appeared at the
grating.  He was ready.  First knotting the rope to
one of the side bars, he pressed his knee against the
stone sill, and pulled with both hands first one bar and
then another.  Slowly the bars yielded.  Roger flung
out the rope.

What was that?  The step of the sentry returning
already?  Marion leaned out to wave a warning.  It
was too late.  Roger had thrust head and shoulders
through the gap.  He drew one foot up on to the ledge,
then leaning out, caught the rope and bore on it while
he freed the other foot.  He slid down.  Just as he
landed on the ground, the sentry swung round the
building.

Roger was the first to see the man.  For one paralysing
instant he stood still.  The sentry started and
stared, dumb with amazement.  Before he had time
to level his carbine, before he had the wit to shout,
Roger leaped at him, his fists clenched.  Out flashed
his right hand, and caught the man a crashing upward
blow on the jaw.  The sentry fell like a log.  Roger
darted to the wall.  Marion only waited to see him
spring from the coping into the road.  With a swift
word to her aunt, she ran along the passage and down
the gallery into the hall.  The door stood wide open.
She sped down to the courtyard gate.

Roger was already there, wrapping himself in the
coachman's cloak.  Simone was holding his hat and
crop.  Roger gave a swift look at Marion.

'We have to pass the gaol for the east gate,' said
she.  'Can we?  Have we time?  Shall we make
for the west?

'The man will be a good five minutes at least.  Then
another five remembering what has happened,' said
Roger quietly.  'Come!'

With a fleeting glance for Simone, Marion followed
him out.  The two ran lightly back along the road,
past the gaol gates.  There was not a sound from the
building.  No one was in the road.  The whole town
seemed deserted.  Through the old east gate they
went, and turned up towards the castle scarp.

Just beyond the ridge, in the shadow of some trees,
Zacchary was waiting with the greys.  Roger lifted
Marion into her saddle, and leapt into his own.  Then
he looked down at Zacchary, and said a husky word of
farewell.

Zacchary was staring as at a ghost.  He had never
believed the plan would succeed.  Before he had time
to consider was it really Master Roger, in Mistress
Keziah's livery, the two were on a narrow track that
led by a round-about course to join the westward
road some miles farther on.

For several minutes Zacchary stood still.  The sound
of the horses' hoofs on the soft turf died away.  He
stared about the quiet green fields and down into the
town.  The day had come.

Mistress Keziah had ordered Zacchary to make a
wide detour among the country lanes, and enter the
streets later by the west gate when folk were stirring
and the business of the day was afoot.  For a couple
of miles Zacchary followed the track of the horses.
On the summit of the hill he stood and looked round.

Through a straggling copse to the right, that shielded
the path the fugitives had taken, the high road from
Honiton was visible, winding down into the valley.
A solitary horseman was riding towards the town.
In the shelter of the trees Zacchary stood and watched.
There seemed to be something familiar in the man's
head and shoulders.  Then he remembered.

It was the messenger whose horse had cast a shoe the
day the coach foundered in the lane.





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.. _`THE ROAD TO THE WEST`:

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   CHAPTER XXII


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   THE ROAD TO THE WEST

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After close on two hours' hard riding the
fugitives drew rein.  They had not spoken
except once to confer on direction, Marion having
simply stated that they were returning to Garth.
Roger had pointed out the cross-country track where
he thought it most likely they would escape detection.

They were on the edge of a spur of the moor, and
from its advantage they wheeled to scan the countryside.
There was no sign of life save the cattle and
ponies grazing in the rough grass.

Soon Marion became aware that Roger had turned
his gaze on herself.  Fingering her crop, she sat
tongue-tied and helpless.  She had dreamed of this moment,
when she and Roger would find themselves riding
homeward, the shadow of the gaol left behind, and a
long chapter in their lives to recall, each for the other.
The moment having come, she could do nothing but
stare at her horse's head and run her crop in and out of
his mane.

Roger's hand fell abruptly on hers.  Marion raised
her eyes and dropped them again.  The hand tightened.

'I cannot say it,' said Roger huskily.  'I cannot.'

Marion glanced at the pale, worn face.

'Don't try,' she faltered, her composure breaking
before the look in his eyes.  'I know just what you
would say.'

'No one can,' said Roger in a low voice, 'who has
not been at the very edge of the grave.'

Marion's hand gently touched Roger's.  Tears shone
on her lashes.

'I do believe,' she said tremulously, acting on a swift
inspiration, 'I do believe I am hungry.'

Roger dropped his hand and turned his head away,
and leaning over, Marion tried to unbuckle one of his
saddlebags.  Soon her companion became aware of her
action.  Hastily he dismounted.  From the bag he
drew out a flask of wine and a wallet of food.

'Venison pasty!' said he, staring at the piece Marion
offered him.  He snatched at it with an eagerness that
went to her heart.  Half-way to his lips he withdrew it.
'I am a brute!' he said.  'Forgive me.  Where is yours?'

'Here.  We have one each.  Now I shall give you
just five minutes, sir.'

Marion smiled down at the upturned face, but her
hint brought Roger back to the present.  He mounted
again, and the two moved forward at a gentle pace,
eating and talking as they rode.  In a few words
Marion explained her plans on his behalf.

'So you are going to banish me to the high seas,'
said Roger at the end.

Marion was silent a minute.  Then, rousing herself:
''Tis strange by what crooked means a man's fate
overtakes him.  Do you remember that day on the
headland when the *Fair Return* set sail?  My father
always said that being a sailor bred and born you
would in the end go to sea.'

The slight meal finished, they set their horses at a
trot over the springing turf.

'What about my mother?' said Roger.  'Can I
not see her before I sail, think you?'

'If we get down to Garth untroubled, perhaps yes.
But we may have a close run for it.'

'I think we have not been seen yet,' said Roger.

'Except for the old woman.'

Roger was silent a while.  About five miles out of
the city they had come face to face with a small
apple-cheeked dame setting out from her cottage with her
basket of butter.  The little low building, tucked in a
fold of the moor, had been unnoticed by them, and they
had reduced their speed, hoping that their headlong
flight had not already been noted by some one within
the cottage walls.

Marion had bidden the dame good morning and
talked of the weather.  The wind was steadily gathering,
and every few minutes came fleeting squalls of
rain.  The old woman was not in a good temper.  A
wet market day in Exeter meant poor money for her
butter.  She feared a heavy storm was brewing.
Then she added, not without several motherly glances
for the pale-faced groom who rode just behind the
lady: 'If so be you'm for Mortonhampstead, Mistress,
'twere best to take to the left down along and find the
waggon track.  Folk do sure lose themselves easily
on they moors, and there be terr'ble danger of bogs
up over.  Only yesterday a gentleman got off the track.
Mighty near to sinking in Tinker's Cup a'd been, with
bog muck up to the horse's knees.  'Twas as fine a
gentleman as ever a clapped eyes on.  And a crown
her gave me, as cool as day, for setting of un right.'

'Here's another to keep it company,' smiled Marion.
'Good day.'

In case she should be watching, the two had made a
show of returning to the track she had pointed out,
then branched to the north again, leaving
Mortonhampstead, its chimneys beaten by driving smoke,
away to the left.

'I don't think she noticed anything,' said Roger.
'And as you say, they'll be searching the river and the
seaward country.'

After a time Roger reined in and looked about.
They were out on the open moor.  As he scanned the
hills and gullies, the fair green bog stretches, he was
seized by a conviction that they were not making the
speed they should.  In avoiding the dangers of the
moor, they had been obliged to take a winding course.
A landmark which should have been left miles behind
lay at his shoulder.

'Marion,' he said suddenly, 'we must take to the
waggon track if we wish to reach Garth to-day.  We
have lost half an hour wandering among these
hummocks.  Better make a rush for it that way
than get hopelessly bogged or lost.'

Marion looked relieved.  ''Twill be vastly easier
to ride straight on so.  And this heavy land is bound to
weary the horses.'

By tacit consent the two spared no energy or time in
speech.  In a short time they gained the track.  An
hour later they passed through Postbridge.  There
they decided to feed the horses.  While the greys
were being attended to, Roger playing the part of
groom among the stable men, Marion was entertained
by the innkeeper with the news of the countryside.
Among other details the host gave a description of
a gentleman who had passed through on the previous
evening, wishful to lie at Princetown.  Listening,
Marion mused a little on the coincidence: twice that
morning she had heard of the stranger westward bound.

At the crest of the steep rise out of Postbridge
Roger turned in his saddle and cast a keen eye over
the Exeter road.  With a swift gesture he pulled up
his horse and remained motionless.  Instantly on the
alert, Marion stopped and followed the direction of his
gaze.  There was a lull in the storm; the sky had
lightened over the east.  A bar of watery sunlight
fell across the hills that lay between Mortonhampstead
and Postbridge.  A couple of men on horseback showed
against the skyline, minute figures only visible to
those who had been trained from childhood to scan far
distances.  For a few seconds their horses showed
clear.  Then a driving cloud swathed the sunlight, and
the moor lay misty and uncertain again.

'Did you see?' asked Roger quietly.  'Or did I
imagine it?'

Marion nodded, and settling herself in her saddle
raised her crop.  An unexpected, heavy blow startled
the grey into a canter that soon became a gallop.  The
second horse came easily alongside, Roger looking into
his holsters as he rode.  Before they had gone half a
mile the storm on the height of the moor redoubled its
fury.  Rain lashed their faces.  Bending sideways
to the blast they drove the greys mercilessly on, only
slightly slacking their speed as Princetown was reached
and passed.  There the track dropped into the valley.
As the steaming animals picked their way down the
slope, Marion turned to Roger.

'Do you think we should try to change horses at
Tavistock?'

Roger shook his head.  ''Tis but another thirty
miles to Garth.  These brutes will soon know, if they
don't know now, that they are nearing home.  They
can do it.  'Twould mean at least ten minutes to
change.'

Marion took what ease she could from the slackened
pace.  Her cloak and habit were soaked and hung
limply about her.  Wearily she drooped in the saddle,
thankful for the respite from the storm that beat the
heights.

'I am not worth it, Mawfy,' said Roger suddenly.

Marion smiled and straightened herself a little, but
she made no reply.  The bed of the valley passed,
the greys trotted slowly up the slope.

'Now for it!' said Roger, as they gained comparatively
level land.  Soon they were at a straining
gallop again, their heads bent to the wind and rain.
From time to time they looked back, but the valley
had swallowed their pursuers.

After a few more miles Marion became aware that
her horse was a neck ahead of Roger's; then a length.
Roger drove his heels into the grey's flanks.  For a
few yards they speeded alongside, then Marion found
herself ahead again.  She slightly checked her pace and
glanced at her companion.  There was a queer look on
Roger's face.  He slowed to a trot, leaning over to
examine the action of his horse's feet.

'Wait a minute, Mawfy,' he said quietly.  Hastily
dismounting, he examined his horse's shoes and knees.
'I can see nothing,' he said, springing up again.  'It
is perhaps a tendon that does not show any swelling yet.'

The horse, urged into speed, ran unevenly, jerking
on the off hind.  With crop and heel Roger pressed
the brute to his utmost, but both the riders knew his
miles were numbered.  Neither spoke.  Each had the
same cold dread at heart.

'How far are we from Liskeard?' asked Marion faintly.

'Close on ten miles, I should think.  But there
should be an inn half-way.'

Mercilessly Roger forced the pace of the limping
grey.  'It grieves me,' he said abruptly, 'but 'tis his
life against mine.'

From time to time Marion looked fearfully over her
shoulder.  She knew that the wind, driving against
them, would make it impossible for them to hear their
pursuers till they were close at hand.  Another quarter
of an hour, at this rate, should bring them within hail.

'Take my horse and go on,' said Marion suddenly.
'They would not dare shoot me, and if they took me
back to gaol Aunt Keziah would get me out.'

Roger's answer was a look from which Marion turned
her face away.  They trotted on in silence.  The road
had turned into a winding waggon track that curled
round the hillside.  Beeches topped the steep, unbroken
hedges bordering the way.  Behind the hedges on the
one hand the ground fell away steeply, on the other
climbing to a ridge that was the last outpost of the
moor.

Roger stood in his stirrups.  'I think I can see some
sort of a building, a couple of miles or so farther on
where this lane ends.'

Marion's heart sank.  Another couple of miles
would mean at least a quarter of an hour at the pace
they were going.  She had a mental vision of the
devouring stride of the pursuers' horses.

'And should they come before that,' added Roger,
'you are to ride on out of reach of shot.  Remember
now.'

Marion flashed a withering glance at the speaker.  'I
should of course do that, should I not?  Give me one
of those pistols.  Ah.  I hear voices.  Where are they?'

'There is nothing,' said Roger.  All his attention
was given to the grey.

Marion looked swiftly over her shoulder.  Through
a gap in the trees she imagined that she caught a fleeting
glimpse of red.  Making a swift calculation, she knew
the soldiers were but three miles away.  She cast a
despairing look at Roger's horse.

'Give me one of those pistols, Roger,' she pleaded.
'I shall not leave you.'

Roger's answer was lost in a sudden cry from Marion.
She was riding slightly ahead, and could command a
curve in the road.  Roger saw her speed on.
Stumblingly his horse followed.

A cart and horse were slowly making their way along
the deeply rutted track.  In the cart a boy sat, talking
to a horseman who rode at the rear.  The rider's face
was turned to meet the sound of approaching hoofs.

'Colonel Sampson!' called Marion, her voice breaking.
'Colonel Sampson!  Oh, thank God!'

The traveller wheeled round and stared in amazement
from Marion to the horseman at her heels.

'Roger's grey has fallen lame,' cried Marion, 'and
the soldiers are almost on us.'

Sampson glanced keenly at the boy, who, still more
amazed than he was, made a courteous salute.  In his
face he saw the marks of prison durance.  So this was
the Roger whose fate had made a criss-cross track
through so many lives!

In an instant he saw his course plain.  With a
gesture bidding the two to follow, he set his horse at
the narrow space left between the waggon and the
hedge.  When all three were ahead of the vehicle,
Sampson dismounted.

'Take my horse, sir,' he said quietly, 'and ride on.
My friend and I here will arrange a barricade.  Pull
your mare over so as to block the lane, my lad.  Get
the wheel into the ditch, so.  A golden guinea for you
if you keep yonder soldiers back for half an hour and
hold your tongue about this exchange.  We must
head them off on another scent.'

The farm boy's eyes shone.  With alacrity he obeyed
the gentleman's orders.

'Quick!' said Marion.  'Quick!  I can hear their
hoofs.  I can almost see them!'  She was dazed by
the way life and death tossed their alternate greetings
in her ears.

'But you, sir,' said Roger, hesitating.

'I am an old soldier,' smiled Sampson.  'I fought
behind barricades before you were born.  Apart from
that, there will be no need to fight.  'Tis not myself
they are after.'

With her fingers clenched on her crop, watching for
the gleam of red through the trees, Marion listened in
an agony.  The encounter had really not taken a
minute's time, but to the girl the talk seemed idle
and useless.

'Quick, Roger!' she cried again.

Roger sprang on to the Colonel's horse, a powerful
roan, and Sampson mounted the limping grey.

'Now no one is any the wiser,' said Sampson.
'And we have not even seen you, have we, my lad?'

The farm boy grinned.  It was an encounter after
his own green heart.  'A bean't be seeing nought, sir,'
he said.

'And this wretched waggon is in a devil of a mess,'
pursued Sampson, stroking his moustache.  'Yonder
kind-hearted soldiers will surely help straighten it.
Good luck, sir.  Good-bye, Marion, my dear.  I will
follow you to Garth.'

Roger rode on and Marion held a trembling hand to
Sampson, her eyes shining through tears.  As she
trotted away Sampson called: 'Where is Simone?'

Marion stayed a second to answer.  'With my
Aunt Keziah in Exeter.'  There was a reply from
Sampson she failed to understand.  She broke into a
canter and the roan and the grey were lost to sight.
The lane ended abruptly in open land, and the track
curved down along the flank of the hill.  Just as they
bore round, the fugitives turned once more and caught
the gleam of the uniforms half way down the lane.

'Just in time!' said Roger.  'We can see them
because of their colour, but 'tis unlikely they can have
seen us since we left the open land.'

Side by side the two tore along the track, Marion
bringing to bear on her horse the extreme pressure
which so far had been unnecessary.  Except when the
nature of the track compelled, the two did not relax
their speed until Liskeard was reached.  Midday
struck from the steeple as they rode through the town.

They broke into a gallop again, keeping a ceaseless
watch for their pursuers.  It was touch and go now.
The land was so uneven that they could not see the
track for more than half a mile at a time.  At any
moment the soldiers might gallop round the last
hummock.

No words passed between the two, until, half an
hour later, Marion suddenly pulled up, her eyes dim.
She looked about.

'I remember that hill,' she said tremulously, 'and
through yonder gap on a fine day we should see the
sea.  Oh Roger! we are nearly there!'

Roger looked over his shoulder.  'That mysterious
Colonel of yours is a clever man.  You must tell me
some day how he did it.  There, at that clump of
trees, we turn off for a smugglers' bridle path.  I
know it well.  It runs down to the coast and spares
the hill outside Garth.  If no one sees us for the next
five minutes we are safe.'

Marion followed Roger, and leaving the grey to pick
his own footing, fixed her eye on the backward track
till a copse of wind-blown oaks hid it from their view.
The path wound perilously down a stony gully, difficult
to ride save for the moorland-bred.  The wind was
wearing away, a steady fine rain falling in place of the
gusts and clamour of the morning.  The realisation
that the end of the perilous journey was in sight was
slowly dawning on the girl's shaken senses.  Another
couple of miles, and they would sight the cottages
and banks of Garth.

A few minutes later Roger slowed his horse and
waited for her.  The track had fallen to the river bed,
and there was room for the two to ride side by side.
Roger looked keenly at the girl's face.

'Do you know,' said he, 'we have ridden all this time
and I have not said a word of all that is in my mind.
Somehow 'twas enough to have you by my side and be
riding to freedom.  Nothing else matters.  And now
in a few minutes we shall be at the village.  Mawfy,
I cannot,—I—my mind is fevered.  To say thank you
to some one who has saved your life sounds like foolishness.'

'I told you this morning not to try,' said Marion,
lifting her grey eyes to his.

Roger looked a long look at the pale face framed in
the wet clinging hair.

'And I am going to sea,' he said suddenly.  'But
I shall find some means of hearing of you.  You and
my mother.  You will see my mother and tell her?'

'She shall know at once,' said Marion gently.

'See,' cried Roger, 'yonder on the hill is Mother
Poole's cottage.  Do you remember?'

'Ay,' said Marion.  'I remember.'  She bit her
lip, and looked straight ahead.  Then, realising that
village eyes would soon be on her, she straightened
herself in the saddle.

'Mawfy!'  Roger leaned over and took her hand.

She glanced at the warm dark eyes and looked hastily
away again.  A wave of colour wiped out the whiteness
of cheek and throat.  Roger was pulling the damp
glove from her hand.  The fingers lay limply between
his own.

'It is good-bye, just for a little time,' said Roger,
and caressingly he passed the trembling hand across
his bent face.

Struggling for composure, Marion withdrew her
fingers.  The village lay before them.  She dimly
noted that a child had run out from a cottage, seen
them, and run in again, shouting something.  She
dimly saw groups of sailors on the quay shading their
eyes and staring up the valley.  Then next minute a
girl ran bareheaded to meet them and stood with
clasped hands.  It was Charity Borlase.

'Jack said as how you'd do it, Mistress,' she said
simply, her eyes shining.  'The boat's waiting down
along, Master Roger, and tide's running grand.  Silas
be going to row you out.'

Roger dismounted and lifted Marion from the saddle.
'Take Mistress Marion home, Charity, up the short
path, and look after her well.  She is very, very tired.'

He bared his head as his eyes sought Marion's, and
once more, careless of Charity's presence, he lifted her
fingers to his lips.  The next minute he was striding
down the beach.  He leaped into a boat pointed out
by a waiting youth and took an oar.  As the boat shot
out into the estuary hoarse cheers rose from the quay.
The valley rocked with the sound.  Women and children
clustered by the water, waving their hands and crying.
Charity's apron was at her eyes.

'God bless 'ee, Master Roger!' came voice after
voice to Marion's ears.

Marion stood motionless on the beach.  The last
she saw was Roger's hand waving as the boat pitched
into the heavy seas about the harbour mouth.





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.. _`HOME`:

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   CHAPTER XXIII


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   HOME

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The wind had fallen, and a soft mist lay about
the house next day, when Marion opened her
eyes.  She lay for a long while in drowsy content,
lost between sleep and waking, opening her eyes
and closing them again on the dear delight of home.
The sense of peace that had fallen on her spirit the
previous night when she had returned from the Manor
and stolen straight to her own chamber, seemed still
more to fill the place where she lay.  It was as if she
had sailed into a familiar haven after long tossing on
strange seas.  All the dear associations of her childhood
leapt from nook and shelf to greet her.  She lay and
smiled at roof and window, rug and chair.  And
behind her warm feeling of content lay a thought that
was like a caress: Roger was safe; Roger was happy
at sea; Roger was coming back soon.  A rosy flush
tinted her face as she remembered—would she ever
forget?  'Good-bye just for a little time, Mawfy!'

While she was still half dreaming, the housekeeper
gently opened the door.

'Come in, Curnow, dear!' called Marion.  'I
know 'tis you.  I have never known any one come
into a room quite so gently as you do.'  She smiled
at the old woman.  ''Tis good to see you again,
Curnow.  What is that?  Bread and milk?  Fie, fie,
Curnow!  Do you suppose I have become an elegant
old lady like Aunt Keziah, already?  I cannot abide
food in bed.  It makes the whole chamber taste
queer.'

There were tears in Mrs. Curnow's eyes as she threw
a covering over Marion's shoulders and handed her the
bowl.  If only the Admiral would return, her cup of
joy would be full.  The same thought was passing
through Marion's mind as she obediently began to
drink the milk.

'I wish Father were home.  I felt wretched last night
when you said he was away.  But he will soon be back.
He must have left London for Exeter by this time.'

Mrs. Curnow watched her young mistress in silence
for a time; then she began moving restlessly about
the room, putting a chair here and a stool there.

'Come and sit down, Curnow,' said Marion.  'You
will be tired before dinner time.'

''Tis past dinner time already,' said the
housekeeper, looking at her indulgently.

'What!  How could you let me sleep so, and all
that there is to be done?'

'There bean't no tur'ble call for 'ee to get up,
Mistress Marion.'

'But there is much to be done.  There are the guest
chambers to be got ready for Colonel Sampson and my
Aunt Keziah.  My aunt said she would follow in the
coach with Simone.  Most likely they lay at Tavistock
last night.  They should be here this afternoon, if
nothing has delayed them.  I do want my Aunt
Keziah's chamber to look beautiful, Curnow.'

The housekeeper smiled fondly at the girl she had
tended from babyhood.  Indeed, she had lain awake
most of the night pondering on Marion's story, and trying
to see her 'little maid' in the light of its revelation.

'You will like Simone, Curnow,' Marion continued.
'I told you I am going to persuade my father to let
me keep her here with us, did I not?  She is French,
you know, but very different from——'  Marion
stopped abruptly.

The smile on her hearer's face gave way to the grave,
unhappy look the old woman had worn of late.

'What is it, Curnow?'

'I ought to tell you, Mistress Marion.  I scarce
know what to do,' the housekeeper slowly began.
''Tis Mademoiselle.'

Marion handed the speaker her bowl, and lay back on
the pillow.  'I know all about that,' she said quietly.
Mrs. Curnow stared.

'I did not tell you last night,' pursued Marion.
'There were so many other things to tell.'

'You know——'

'I know she betrayed Roger, if that is what you
mean.  Charity Borlase told me in a letter.  Does
my father know?'

'Not of my telling.  'Tis now,' the housekeeper
counted on her fingers, 'eight days since the Admur'l
came home, changed the horses, and straight up over
for London.  The Admur'l had heard down along
about Master Roger, and with the look on his face no
one dared speak to un—leastways not me.  Mayhap
Silas have told.  And there be other things too,'
wearily added the old woman.  'I scarce do know
where to begin.'

'Leave it till my father comes, Curnow.  It is all
over now—all the trouble, I mean.  The rest is for him
to settle.  Where—where is Mademoiselle?'  Marion
spoke with an effort.

'In her chamber.  Her've never left un since the
day Charity came up to have a few words, private-like,
with she.  Fear of what folk may do to un, may
be.  Zora have been telling that Victoire do say——'

'Victoire!'  There was a curious look on Marion's
face.  'When did Victoire come home?'

'The very day afore you did, Mistress Marion.
That is to say, the night before last, when the house
was abed.  All unbeknownst her came in a coach from
Plymouth.  Seemingly the old woman in France
yonder do be better.  And yesterday—' a grim smile
came on the housekeeper's face—'heart-sore and sick
as I was, with the thought of dear Master Roger
pressing on me, as 'ee might say, I couldn't forbear a
smile when I saw Victoire eagerlike to talk to the
wenches in the kitchen, and me having forbade they,
most severe, to say one word to she.'

Marion got out of bed and began to dress.  'Curnow,'
she said abruptly, 'I was never so thankful for
anything in my life as that my Aunt Keziah is coming.
Until Father returns, Aunt Keziah will see to Victoire
and Mademoiselle.  Don't let us talk of it, Curnow.
I am trying not to think of it, even.  It is horrible.
Master Roger is safe.  That is all that matters.'

The housekeeper presently went below, and Marion
finished her dressing with a sober look on her face.
The early joy and peace of the waking had vanished.
For Marion, the last fortnight had been too much
filled with immediate action to leave room for plans
about the prime defaulter in the sorry affair.  What
should she say or do if she met Elise?

At length, feeling as uncomfortable as if she had to
walk about alone in a haunted house, Marion went out
of her chamber and set about the supervision of rooms
for the coming guests.

In the meantime, Victoire sat talking by Elise's
bed, talking softly, rapidly, in what the domestics
called her heathen tongue.  Victoire was angry,
and Elise trembled as she listened.  Just so, all
her life, had that quiet, angry voice dominated her.

It had needed far less insight than Victoire possessed
to learn that there was a new and bitter and
unexplained feud between the household and herself and
her young mistress.

She had found Elise in bed on the night of her
arrival, and a feigned drowsiness on the girl's part
had postponed any conversation till the morrow.  With
the morrow, however, a strange Elise had met her eyes,
an Elise thin, worn, with a hunted, frightened look
that perplexed Victoire.  Elise was suffering from the
old enemy, *migraine*, and preferred not to leave her
bed.  The waiting woman had descended to the
kitchen, and at once became aware of the ban imposed
by Mrs. Curnow.  The serving girls answered her in
yea and nay, and that was the sum of their speech.
Neither did they talk in her presence, being only too
pleased to carry out to the letter the housekeeper's
instructions.  Victoire, baffled, ascended to her
mistress's room again.  Elise's sufferings were not
feigned, and she only prayed to be left alone till the
pain became easier to bear.  She would tell Victoire all
the news later on.

Victoire, watching, saw that underlying the girl's
physical suffering was the mental strain of some
overpowering dread.  Elise insisted on keeping the bolts
of the chamber drawn; watched the door as footsteps
passed without.  In vain Victoire prayed for an
explanation; at length she lapsed into sullen silence.
In the late afternoon, while Elise was dozing Victoire
crept downstairs.  The kitchen was rocking with joyous
sounds; laughter and tears, it would seem, and mid
hilarious voices crying out on some unforeseen
tremendous event.  Victoire listened at the door long
enough to disentangle the story wherein Marion's
name and Roger's were freely tossed about.  The
waiting woman had known nothing of the happenings
in Garth during the past month.  Wrath at Elise's
reticence, and amazement at the story she had heard
sent her hot-foot to the girl's room.  She strode noisily
to the bedside, and Elise, waking from a slight doze,
started up in speechless terror.

'What is this,' cried Victoire, 'about Roger
Trevannion being rescued from gaol by Marion?'

She got no farther.  Elise gave a low cry, and sank
fainting on her pillow.

The rest of the evening Victoire spent in real anxiety
by the girl's bed.  With the morning Elise rallied
under the effects of the medicine given her, and while
Mrs. Curnow and Marion were discussing her in Marion's
chamber, Elise gave a faithful history of the neighbourhood
during Victoire's absence in Brittany.  And
Victoire was angry; not, it appeared, because Elise
had done Roger a grievous wrong, but because she had
made a fatal blunder.  Elise's poignant remorse she
brushed aside as being of no moment; Elise's terror
of Charity Borlase's threat of vengeance she passed
by in contempt.

'It is monstrous, inconceivable,' she went on, her
voice becoming softer and softer as rage consumed
her.  'Here fate has worked in the kindest possible
way.  That stupid, inquisitive old lawyer Lebrun
who might have ruined our plans, has by a merciful
Providence been allowed to die.  For young Lebrun
I do not care a straw.  The anxiety of years has been
removed.  Your inheritance lies clear before you,
the d'Artois estates only waiting for a mistress.  And
just when we could have departed in friendliness from
that fool, the Admiral, you have committed this
indescribable folly.  Why could you not leave Roger
Trevannion alone?'

'Did I not tell you,' said Elise sulkily, 'that he spied
on me, that he had found out all about the cove and
the man?'

'Nonsense!  He just happened to pass that way,
and he saw you.'

'He would have told.'

'Nonsense, again!  You do not know the world.
Had it been a woman, a village girl, there might have
been danger—even then supposing the Admiral would
have listened to one word from a village girl concerning
his guest.  But a young man like Roger Trevannion!
Roger is *gentilhomme, vois-tu?—gentilhomme*.  He
might have given evidence if asked, and only then if
he had thought it was his honourable duty.  They
mind their own business, *ces gens-là*!  You have judged
him as if he were a fisher lad.  And if you had wanted
to get rid of him—and I should not have had anything
to say about that if you had been successful and done
it properly'—Elise shuddered—'why, could you not
have gone down to the cove and signalled to the man
to do it for you?  He would do anything for money,
and you had plenty of money.  But to go yourself to
Bodmin!  I am speechless!  You have ruined us, do
you hear?'

'I wish from the bottom of my heart,' suddenly said
Elise, her face mottled yellow and white, 'that I had
never seen Garth.  The whole thing has been monstrous.
For my part, I am willing to confess.'

Victoire stood and looked at the girl, and laughed.
Elise sank back in bed, and hid her face.

'We will talk about that later,' went on the mocking,
silky voice.  'In the meantime, prepare for a long walk,
my good girl.  As soon as dusk falls to-night, we set out.'

For a long time no more was said.  Victoire busied
herself with certain preparations, sewing money and
jewels into the folds of her dress.  The girl made no
effort to rise and help her.  She lay with closed eyes,
from time to time falling into convulsive weeping
whose sounds she stifled in the bed clothes.  Her
companion, busy among the garments hanging in the press
in the inner room, failed to note, for all her caution,
the dull sound of wheels, and if Elise heard, she made
no comment.

'Listen to that!' said Victoire presently, emerging
from her closet with a length of priceless lace on her
arm.  'There is the kitchen still uproarious.  They
will be singing and dancing all night because of this
escape.  But—ah, good! while they are amusing
themselves, I will get into the buttery for food for our
journey.  If I go through the hall, the wenches will
not see me.'

'Marion may,' faltered Elise.

'And do you suppose the Princess Royal will speak
to me?'

With a little laugh, Victoire went boldly downstairs,
and entered the hall, one door of which gave access to
the butler's pantry and the buttery.  Too late she
realised her mistake.  Several people were sitting
there, and Mrs. Curnow was carrying a tray of wine
and cake from guest to guest.  The open door in her
hand, ready to retrace her steps, Victoire paused long
enough to note the new arrivals.  Her beady black
eyes ran from face to face.  There was a gentleman
whom she did not recognise, standing by the window;
in the big chair sat Mistress Keziah Penrock.  Victoire
had scarcely time to feel alarmed at the sight of the
lady, for on the instant she caught sight of another
figure, that of a young girl who was talking eagerly
with Marion.  Victoire's other hand clutched at the
door post, and at the same moment Marion caught sight
of her.  A sudden pause in the conversation made
Simone look curiously round.  She gave a sharp cry,
and passing her hand over her eyes, stared about the
room, then seized Marion's arm with both hands.
From that support she turned her head slowly, like a
frightened child, and looked again at the woman
clinging to the door.  Across the room two pairs of
eyes stared, each at a ghost.  Simone dropped Marion's
arm, and stepped forward.  Suddenly the face at the
door became distorted, the hand shot out to ward off
Simone's approach, a broken gabble fell from the
ashen lips.  Then silence again.

Simone stepped quite close, and looked steadfastly
at her.

'*Victoire!*'





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.. _`ELISE PASSES OUT`:

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   CHAPTER XXIV


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   ELISE PASSES OUT

.. vspace:: 2

'Pray, sit down, Simone.'

It was Colonel Sampson's voice, even and
decorous, that broke in on the strained silence.  He
drew a chair up to the oaken table as he spoke.  Simone
obeyed, holding a hand out as if for support.  Marion
took the hand and held it, gently passing her own
palm across the trembling fingers.  Motioning Victoire
into the room, Mrs. Curnow quietly shot the bolt and
latched the other door that gave on to the kitchen
passages.  Mistress Keziah looked curiously from
face to face, then with a slight gesture she turned to
Colonel Sampson.

Bending over Simone, whose eyes never left the
woman at the door, Sampson spoke.

'Tell us, if you can, my dear, who this woman is.'

'My nurse,' instantly replied Simone.

'Your nurse?' repeated Mistress Keziah in a clear,
steady voice.  'You are not mistaken?'  She looked
from Marion who, speechless, was staring at Victoire,
to Sampson.  The Colonel nodded once or twice, with
a smile.  Simone leaned her brow on her hand for a
minute, then looked up at him.  Her whole face was
transformed.

'I can remember!' she cried, springing up.  'Oh,
I can remember!'  She pressed her fingers to her
cheeks, staring beyond the room into the past.

'Remember what, Simone dear?' said Marion in a
trembling voice, forcing the girl gently into her chair.

Simone's low voice broke on a hysterical note.
'But,' she cried, 'I am not Simone.  Did I not say I
have just remembered?  I have been trying all my
life to remember.  I am not Simone.  I am Elise.'

Marion stepped back, her grey eyes wide.  She
looked appealingly at her aunt; but that lady, her
gaze bent on Simone, appeared to be making a reckoning
and a remembrance on her own account.  Sampson
still smiled from the window seat.

Marion looked again from Simone to the woman
who stood, her mouth closed tight, by the door.  What
could have happened to affect Simone's mind thus?

'But,' she faltered, 'Elise is upstairs in her room.
Are there two Elises?'

'I told my brother,' rang out Mistress Keziah's
clear voice, 'I told my brother yonder girl was not a
de Delauret.  Had your nurse a child, my dear?'
she asked, turning to Simone.

'Why, yes,' said Simone slowly.  'Let me see now.
What was she called?  Wait a minute.  I have it!
Suzanne Marie.  We used to play together.  How
clear it is all growing!'

There was a curious pause.  Marion stepped forward,
a strange look on her colourless face.

'Then Suzanne Marie is upstairs,' triumphantly said
Mistress Keziah.  'The whole thing is clear.'

A wail broke from Marion's lips.  'I cannot
understand it.  Aunt Keziah, are we all going mad?'

Simone, staring across at Victoire, seemed not to
hear, and Sampson, watching the girl, saw that she
was slowly linking together the scattered chain of her
memories.

'The woman Victoire will doubtless explain,' said
Mistress Keziah.  'I told your father there was some
hideous mystery.  The whole village knew.  Any one
else but my brother would have known.  The woman
just put her own child in Simone's place.'

Again a stupefied silence fell on the room.  There
was no word from the woman at the door.

Quite suddenly Marion burst into tears.

'It is horrible,' she said.  'Horrible!  Have I been
all these years playing and sleeping and eating with
some one called Suzanne Marie, and the real Elise
starving in London?  Simone,'—she threw her arms
round the girl's neck,—'forgive me, forgive us.'

Mistress Keziah's old eyes watered as she looked at
the girl who had always been so self-controlled.  'My
darling,' she said, 'it was not your fault.'

'I cannot bear it!' cried Marion.  'And I care not
who sees me weep.  Romaine says she found Simone
in a fearful state in a gutter in Crutched Friars.  She
had been so dreadfully treated that she nearly died.
Then when Romaine had nursed her back to health she
could not remember anything.'

'No,' broke in Simone's toneless voice.  'No.  But
I remember now.  Dear Marion, do not be unhappy.'

'I cannot help but be unhappy,' said Marion, drying
her eyes.  'We ought to have found out.  Somebody
ought to have done something.  Think of it, Aunt
Keziah, Simone working in London, stitching all day
for a bit of food.  I cannot bear it.'  Marion sat down
and buried her face in her hands.

'My lamb,' said Mrs. Curnow gently, 'doan't 'ee
take on so, doan't 'ee now.'

'Poor Simone,' said Marion in a strangled voice as
she wrestled for composure, 'and left in a gutter to
die!  And that hard life!  And she would have been
so happy at Garth.'

Simone's low voice here broke in; Simone had grown
curiously still.  One would have said she was a detached
spectator of affairs that concerned other people.

'Why did you do it, Victoire?'

Victoire's mouth tightened to a still harder line.

'Why did you do it?' repeated Simone.  'Were
you not well treated as my nurse?'

'I can tell you that,' said Sampson.  'Victoire
wanted the estates for her own child.'

Simone turned round in her chair.

'What estates, M. le Colonel?  It is all quite clear
to me now—my memory, I mean.  My father told me
when he was very ill, just before he died, that I was to
go to England with Victoire and live with a very dear
friend of his until I was grown up.  He said nothing
of estates.  In fact, I always thought we were poor.
But then, I was only a child of eight.'

'Your mother inherited lands from her father's
family, my dear.  Your grandfather's direct heir died.
You are the inheritor of his estate.  Victoire knew
that.'

'I see,' said Simone.  'I can see it all.  So that was
why my nurse, to my great delight, brought little
Suzanne Marie with us.  I was so pleased.  She was
my playmate.  I remember how nice it was to have
Suzanne Marie going with me to the strange place.  I
remember the ship and the sea.  I remember the queer
English voices when we landed and got into the coach
to go to London.'  Simone spoke slowly as she called
up the minute details of the distant day.  'There was
a place Victoire took us to, to lodge until my guardian
came.  We had queer sort of meat for dinner, and a
pudding with plums in it.  Then we went out into the
street to find a shop.  Victoire was going to buy me a
new ribbon for my hair.  Probably you remember
too, Victoire.  "A nice black ribbon," you said.
Then you—you left me in the street.  I walked and
walked and cried until I was sick.  And then——'  Simone
stopped.  'I don't think I want to remember
any more, M. le Colonel,' she said, in that quiet
composed voice which drew from Mistress Keziah and
Sampson cross-glances of admiration.  'That is all.
And so Suzanne Marie came here and was the kind
Admiral's ward.'

'But was there no one all these years who saw
Victoire or Elise?' asked Colonel Sampson, his voice
breaking in on the silence that had followed Simone's
speech.  'No one of the family?'

The figure by the door stirred, and was still again.
Marion raised her head.  There was something uncanny
in this trying of a silent prisoner.

'Do you know, Marion?' continued the Colonel

'I remember my father told me,' said Marion in a
low voice, 'that the only person left was M. Lebrun
the lawyer.'

'Ah!'  The exclamation came from Mrs. Curnow.
'So now us do be knowing.  Mistress Penrock and
you, Sir, I can tell 'ee.  Victoire here have had as you
might say a secret messenger all these years, a man
as do be known for the vilest wretch in the waters.
Her's gone to France and come back, many a time a
year, putting into Haunted Cove down along and
making a signal.  A foul place that, Sir, such as no
God-fearing man would step into.  And they two
Victoire and Mademoiselle, have gone down secret-like,
to talk to un and leave messages belike.  Always
when there was rough weather or a thick mist, so as
they thought, I suppose, no one would know.  But
the village knew.  The village have known for years
there was something tur'ble wrong.  I see it now,
plain as my hand.  The only danger for they two was
the old lawyer.  And when at last the Admiral arranges
for the old gentleman to be a-coming over, Victoire
finds out, and her suddenly learns her dear mother be
sick unto death, and needs a daughter's care.'

'Why?' queried Mistress Keziah.  'Having done
all this, why should she fear meeting the lawyer?  In
ten years a child alters out of recognition.  Elise and
Simone are of the same complexion.'

Simone was watching the face by the door.  'She
was afraid,' she said.

'Oh yes,' remarked Sampson.  'She was afraid of
the old lawyer, afraid that in spite of her care a whisper
of her secret might have been heard.  It was very
clever of her to go away.  A lawyer is of an inquiring
turn of mind, as a rule, given to asking questions.
And this old gentleman who, I fear, must be dead,
or Victoire would not be with us (I remember now your
talking of him in London, Marion—he was ailing, and
his journey had to be postponed), this old gentleman
might have had the wit to question the two, Victoire
and Elise, separately.  There might not have been an
exact correspondence in replies.  And so Victoire goes
out of the way and leaves Elise to manage the old
gentleman herself.'

'And now us do be knowing another thing,' burst
out the old housekeeper.  'Us knows why Mademoiselle
swore away dear Master Roger's life.  Master
Roger had found out about the doings in Haunted Cove.'

Victoire made a sudden movement.  At last she spoke.

'Lies!' she snapped out.  'All lies.  Mademoiselle
did nothing of the sort.  'Tis all nothing but lies and
hatred.  You have hated us all the time, you and
you'—nodding from Mrs. Curnow to Marion.  She fixed her
beady eyes on Simone.  'You know as well as I know
that yonder poor girl lying upstairs is Elise de Delauret,
and you are a playmate of hers whom I brought over
in the kindness of my heart.  How could I help it
if you strayed away in London?  Did I not seek and
seek——'

Colonel Sampson stepped forward.  'If I were you
I should say nothing more.'

'Would you?  But I've more to say.  Who is
there to believe what that upstart'—she pointed to
Simone—'chooses to say?  There is no one living
but myself who knows who is Elise de Delauret.  I
have proof.  Where is yours?'

'This is really very fine,' said Mistress Keziah, her
eyes gleaming.  'But quite wasted.  Curnow—take——'

'Your proof!' cried Victoire again.  'Her word
against mine and Mademoiselle's upstairs.'

Colonel Sampson was fumbling in his pocket, and
drew out a miniature portrait, a pretty thing, framed
in pearls.  He handed it to Mistress Keziah with a
significant glance towards Simone, who, apparently
unconcerned, but with a strained look growing on her
face, was watching Victoire.  Mistress Keziah looked
from the face in the portrait to the face opposite her.
Victoire darted forward and peered over the lady's
shoulder.  She caught a quick breath.  Just as
Victoire's hand clutched at the miniature Sampson
cried out a word of warning.  Mrs. Curnow swung her
heavy weight on the woman and bore her aside.

'Take her out,' said Mistress Keziah to the
housekeeper.  'Put her in a chamber by herself and have
door and window guarded.'

'I'll put her in the kitchen, if it please you, Mistress,'
said Mrs. Curnow grimly.  'There be plenty there
glad and willing to watch what her does.'

Colonel Sampson opened the door and himself
watched Victoire firmly escorted into the kitchen by
Mrs. Curnow.





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.. _`A FAMILY PARTY`:

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   CHAPTER XXV


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   A FAMILY PARTY

.. vspace:: 2

'She will be quite safe there,' said Colonel Sampson,
returning.  'From the looks of yonder maids
I'll warrant they'll make excellent jailors.'

Simone was still sitting staring at the door by which
Victoire had stood.  Her face had grown white, and
Marion's arm was around her.  Mistress Keziah held
a glass to her lips, and Colonel Sampson opened the
outer door, letting in a breath of sweet air from the
Channel.  Presently Marion drew her outside on to the
terrace, and the two began to walk slowly up and down.
The sunlight was breaking through the mist, falling
gently on the black and gold heads as the girls passed
and repassed the window of the hall.

'They will be best left alone,' said Mistress Keziah.
'It has been terrible for them both.  Marion has only
just found out how much she is attached to Simone,
and she has had over much strain of late.  What a
warm heart beats under that quiet exterior of hers!
As for Simone!  Well, if I know my brother and my
niece, they will endeavour to atone for the past.'  She
looked at Sampson.  'What are we to do?' she asked
abruptly.

Sampson strolled over to the hearth, his hands under
the lapels of his coat.

'I am afraid,' said the old woman suddenly.

'Lest Victoire might seek for vengeance?'

'Just that.'

'It is your brother's affair, really, you know,' said
Sampson after a pause.

'Tush!  My brother!  Has he not been hopelessly
blind?  Oh!'—a flash of anger dyed the old woman's
cheek.  Her eyes gleamed.  She looked at the moment
curiously like the old Salt Eagle.  'I told him,' she
said quietly, 'a woman would have known at once
that there was something wrong.  He chose his own
course.  I came back to Garth too late.  I am not going
to be too late a second time.'

Sampson paced the hall in silence for a while.

'What do you suggest?' he asked, stopping in his walk.

'I should suggest sending the two at once under
escort to Plymouth.  There are plenty of men to
spare—my servants and my brother's.  The men must
not lose sight of them till they are safely embarked.'

'It is really a case for the law.  They should be
imprisoned.'

Mistress Keziah shook her head.  'My brother
would never do that—for Marion's sake—for Simone's
sake.  Once he has got over his wrath, he will only
have one desire, and that to end the whole contemptible
story.  If I thought he was coming back to-morrow,
I would counsel waiting.  But I know he can only just
have left London.  I will take the risk of his
displeasure,' continued the old woman, 'but I am too
much afraid of that terrible woman to let her stay under
the same roof with Simone and my niece.  Let us send
them away, Colonel.  And the whole thing will be done
with.'

For some time the two talked together.  Colonel
Sampson, who had a man's dislike of meddling with
another man's affairs, presently was convinced that
Mistress Keziah was right.

'I will see them safely embarked myself, I think,
or lodge them somewhere in Plymouth until the Admiral
returns.  Perhaps that will be the best.'

'I care not,' said Mistress Keziah, 'so long as they
leave Garth this day.'

After a time Mistress Keziah picked up the miniature
again, and looked at Sampson.  'I am an old woman,'
she said, 'and a mighty curious one.'

Sampson made a low bow.  'To gratify your curiosity
is a pleasure.  Elise d'Artois was the most beautiful
woman in France.  For a spell she did me the honour
to accept me among her acquaintance.  Then de
Delauret came along....  Years passed—more than
I care to remember.  Then, at Lady Fairfax's house,
I was confronted by Simone.  Her face began to haunt
me.  One afternoon, in the coach with Marion she
suddenly turned on me with her mother's smile, and
I vow I thought the years had turned back, and I was
speaking to the peerless Elise d'Artois.  Not dreaming
that that very night our dear Marion and Elise's
daughter would have sore need of me, I took horse
and rode into Hertfordshire to my house there.  In a
secret drawer in my cabinet was the miniature.  My
plan was to show it to Sir John, and then confer as to
what steps should be taken.  When I got back after
two days, I found the Fairfax house deserted, a letter
awaiting me.  The rest you know.'

'It is a vastly strange world,' commented Mistress
Keziah.  She sat musing, turning over the miniature.

'Why do you smile?' queried Sampson.

'I was thinking of my sister Constance, and many
things.  She has a way of saying that Garth is a
wigwam in a forest, where nothing happens save that
the sun rises and sets; a desert island where the tide
comes in and the tide goes out.  I'll wager she will
consider attendance on Her Majesty a poor exchange
for this day's work.'

Mistress Keziah rose as she spoke, and passed out on
to the terrace, while Sampson sought the stables, to
arrange details of the unpleasant journey that awaited
him.

It happened that at that moment Lady Fairfax was
sitting at the dinner-table of the same inn at Postbridge
where Marion and Roger had halted in the course of
their ride.  Captain Beckenham faced her across the
board, and the two were listening to mine host's
recital of events which had, in his eyes, lent the same
importance to the Cornwall Road that marks a field of
battle on the morrow of the fight.  The fact that the
innkeeper had been unaware at the time of the
significance of the appearance of the headlong riders, the
pursuing soldiers, the chariots and horsemen stopping
at his door, and was thus distinctly a day behind the
fair, did not in the least take from his powers as a story
teller.

The lady and gentleman hearkened as they ate, and
forbore to explain that they themselves were, in a
manner of speaking, a belated rearguard of the
procession, the epilogue to the play.  Lady Fairfax
listened with a grave expression thoroughly appreciated
by her companion across the table.  For a considerable
distance now, at each inn where they had stopped for
food or sleep, they had been regaled with the story
which was at heart the same, but disguised according
to the particular fancy of each succeeding narrator.
The entertainment afforded them was thus akin to an
air with variations, each variation a little more tortured
than the last, so that it was a matter for considerable
skill on the hearers' part to beat out the original tune.

Until she had heard at Exeter from the Governor
himself that the prisoner was safe from the reach of
justice, Lady Fairfax had been too anxious to pay
much heed to the rumours that had run to meet her
on her way.  Once that assurance gained, however,
she gave herself up to a more leisurely journey, and
failed not to profit by its diversions.

Mine host, having at length satisfied himself that he
had done his duty as a story teller: shown the prisoner
bearing marks of severe punishment, with bandaged
head and broken arm, scarcely able to sit in the saddle;
the lady accompanying him so unearthly pale and
wrung with anguish that one might have thought
she had got out of her coffin that morning, instead of
out of her bed; after these two unfortunates a whole
regiment, bloodthirsty and hot for vengeance, riding
upon the wings of the wind; a broken-hearted father
dead on the way beyond Salisbury; and innumerable
relatives wearing the track into ditches in their haste
to hear the reading of the will: after all this, I say,
mine host retired to the kitchen with the bottle of his
own wine to which Lady Fairfax had invited him, and
left his travellers to sup in peace.  As he closed the
door, the eyes of the two guests met in undisguised
merriment.

'I vow I am beginning to be sorry,' said Lady
Fairfax, 'that to-morrow we arrive at Garth.
'Twill be an end of these Iliads.  Had my brother
only lived fifty miles farther west, why, my niece might
have finished the journey with the dead body of the
prisoner strapped across her saddle-bow.  There is
still one mystery,' she added, 'and with time we might
have solved it.  No one has told us anything about
Colonel Sampson.'

'He is part of the pursuing army, I should imagine,'
said Beckenham.

'That is but the outside of the affair, of course,'
retorted the lady.  'The inmost heart thereof is the
reason for his mysterious riding into the country just
when my husband was away, and he had promised a
father's care to my niece.  Men are a faithless breed.'

'There will doubtless be some reason,' Beckenham
replied.

'Doubtless!  Doubtless!' mocked Lady Fairfax.
'He may have gone to count the milestones on the
Oxford Road, or write a sonnet to the moon.'  She
yawned behind her pretty hand as she spoke, and
presently rising, bade her companion good-night.

Lady Fairfax's curiosity was not destined to consume
her outright.  The travellers being early on their way
in the morning, it happened that the coach had covered
most of the distance to Garth, and its fair occupant
was looking with secret exultation for old landmarks,
when Captain Beckenham rode up to announce the
approach of another vehicle just a little distance
behind.

Lady Fairfax put her head out of the coach door.

'It cannot be the heart-broken father of our host's
story,' she said, 'for I see my own servant, Reuben,
on the box.  Let us wait, Captain Beckenham.  It
would appear that at last something is going to happen.
I am weary of riding ever on the morrow of the event.'

The vehicle proved to be the Penrock coach, returning
from Plymouth.  There, on the previous evening,
Colonel Sampson had escorted Victoire and Elise,
leaving them with a bodyguard of Mistress Keziah's
providing until her brother should return.  Nothing
loth, Mr. Sampson accepted Lady Fairfax's invitation
to enter her own coach, and Beckenham, suddenly
finding he was weary of the saddle, gave his horse to
Reuben and followed the Colonel.

'Tell them to drive more slowly,' ordered Lady
Fairfax.  'My ears have of late been shaken into
my boots.  Now, Sir, and what have you to say?'

The Colonel, it appeared, had much to say.  The
story so absorbed his fair hearer's attention that the
landmarks of the homecoming journey were left ungreeted.
Lady Fairfax listened to the history of Roger's
escape in growing amazement.

'My little niece!' she exclaimed from time to time.
'Who would have thought it possible?'

Before she had realised the extent of her wonder
at Marion's activities, she found herself out of her
depth, speechless, confounded, at Sampson's revelations
concerning Madame Romaine's little sempstress.

From Simone back to Marion, from Marion and the
unknown Roger back to Simone, Lady Fairfax's
thoughts ran when at last Sampson paused in his
recital.  The Colonel, watching her face, was secretly
amused.  The anger which had been stored up for him
on account of his 'desertion' of Marion never even
found voice; the dismay and disappointment Lady
Fairfax had felt in the manner of her niece's departure
from Kensington was entirely swallowed up in the
thought of this new, strange Marion.  'My little
niece,' she murmured again.

While she was still pondering, the two coaches drove
into Garth.  A minute later, Marion's arms were
round her, Marion's lips on her cheek.  'Dear, dear
Aunt Constance,' she cried, 'I never dreamed you
would come all this way to Cornwall.'

'I suppose you thought I should be content to sit
in Tunbridge playing "I love my Love with an A,"'
retorted the lady, her eyes nevertheless suspiciously
moist as she kissed her niece.  She held the girl at
arm's length.  'Dear heart,' she said gently, 'I have
feared for you greatly, all these days.'

'There was no other way,' said Marion, in tremulous
tones.  'Do not be angered with me, Aunt Constance.'

'And a fine story you have left behind,' grumbled
Lady Fairfax, recovering her old manner.  'Rumours
of runaway marriages flying round Kensington, and
the Court not quite certain whether it can any longer
tolerate the aunt of such a niece.'

Marion's smiling eyes ran beyond the lady to two
figures just emerging from the courtyard.

'Why, there is Captain Beckenham,' she cried.
'Welcome to Garth, Sir.'  Then as she rose from her
curtsey, 'Simone is on the terrace,' she added gravely.

'Oho!' said Lady Fairfax softly, with a quick look
at her niece as, followed by Sampson and Beckenham,
the two walked round into the garden.  'Blows the
wind from that quarter?  Faith!  'Tis an uncertain
world.  And not a stone of this old place altered,'
she mused as she went on.  'But how it has shrunk!
It seemed to me, when I was a child playing in this
garden, to be as big as the Tower of London.'  She
stopped and looked at the grey gabled house.  'Not
a stone altered,' she repeated.  'And I declare if that
isn't my elder sister Keziah sitting yonder.  Dear,
dear, I hope I'm not going to be whipped.  And
where is——  Ah!  Simone, come here at once!'

Simone, glancing from Lady Fairfax to the gentleman
behind her, was very glad to hide her sudden confusion
under cover of a curtsey directed to both new comers
at once.  Lady Fairfax passed her arm affectionately
round the girl, and with Marion on the other side
walked across to the terrace.

'I was always terrified of your Aunt Keziah,' she
murmured.  'I shall look to you two for protection.
Ten years since we met.'

She nevertheless gently disengaged her arms as the
three crossed the stone flags, and by mutual consent,
while the sisters greeted each other, the two girls
turned to talk to Sampson and Beckenham.

'It is over,' called Lady Fairfax presently.  'You
may approach.  Come and sit down.  I want to hear
the whole story again.'

Marion gently placed Simone in the spare seat of
the stone bench and herself stood with one hand gently
resting on Mistress Keziah's shoulder.  The bond
between herself and her Aunt Constance was a very
tender one, but there was now another presence in her
little shrine of loved ones.  Mistress Keziah's face was
wearing a hard look which Marion rightly guessed was
only a mask.  And the old lady was tired.  The
marks of the vigils she had kept on Marion's account
could not at once be effaced.

'Have you not already heard it all, Aunt Constance?'
asked Marion.

'A repetition would be good for one's pride, my dear,'

'How so?' queried Marion.

'How so?  Thus.  Here I come, after sleepless
nights, after completely undoing the peace and quiet
of the Court and setting Her Majesty at her wits' end
by reason of the loss of her waiting woman and the most
important officer in her suite; here I come, I say,
with a Royal Pardon in my pocket.  And it is of no
consequence whatever.  All I do is to sit and hear what
happened the day before.  I feel as if I simply were
not here.  I might just as well have stayed in
Tunbridge and—ah! there is that dear soul Curnow.
I must go and speak to her.  Would the Admiral
but arrive now, we should feel like Moses and all the
prophets.'

'Constance, Constance!' remonstrated her sister.

Lady Fairfax shot a glance at the two girls as she
went towards the door.  'I told you,' she said, 'just
what...'  The rest of her sentence was drowned
in Mrs. Curnow's greeting.

.. vspace:: 2

The household of Garth now gave itself up to an
unaccustomed hilarity: a joy that was all the more
heartfelt because of the secure, quiet happiness that
underlay the merriment.  Lady Fairfax's presence
successfully bridged the gap between the old and the
new; she made Simone feel that her place must always
have been at Garth, made Marion look away from the
uneasy yesterdays to the ever-brightening morrows.
Mistress Keziah, it is true, wore still her old severity,
but at times there were hints of the gentleness and love
underlying her hard exterior.  Even the Admiral,
arriving weary and shaken, was fain to throw off with
the dusty apparel of his journey the sorrow and grief
of the last few weeks.

After one roaring fit of rage at his own folly, and one
grim day spent at Plymouth, the old man wisely put
the past behind him and settled down at the head of the
merry company with supreme content.  While seeking
from Jeffreys a pardon which he was informed had
already been granted by the King, the Admiral had
seized the moment to lay down the burden of office as
the special magistrate of the Lord Chancellor.  And
although Lady Fairfax and her brother failed not
each to rate the other on the subject of the uselessness
of Royal Pardons, there was an unspoken thanksgiving
in their hearts; for the Deputy Governor's
special courier, who had entered the gates of Exeter
an hour after Marion and Roger had ridden out, had
carried a death warrant in his saddlebag.

When Sir John Fairfax at last arrived bearing a
summons for his wife to return to Her Majesty's
service—a summons which included the unwilling
Beckenham,—Lady Fairfax begged the Admiral to be allowed to
carry her niece back to resume her interrupted visit.
But the Admiral professed himself fearful of what
might happen.  Kensington was a place where one's
peace of mind was insecure, and where, moreover, a
'little niece' was apt to change overmuch for her
father's liking.  When Lady Fairfax asserted that the
'little niece' was merely growing up, the Admiral
pished and pshawed.  Marion should stay where she
was, he said, until Simone could be induced to go over
and visit the d'Artois estates.  When that happened—the
Admiral looked as he spoke at Beckenham walking
in the garden with Simone—why, then, he would
come and bring Marion himself, perhaps; but he made
no promises.  And with that Lady Fairfax was obliged
to be content.





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.. _`'SUMER IS A-COMEN IN'`:

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   CHAPTER XXVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   'SUMER IS A-COMEN IN'

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..

   |  *Sumer is a comen in,*
   |    *Loud sing cuccu.*
   |  *Groweth seed and bloweth mead*
   |    *And springeth the wood nu.*
   |      *Sing cuccu.*

Another spring had come to the West Country,
crying over hill and dale its clear song of joy.
Once more salt airs came up from the Channel, once
more a delicious unrest filled the hearts of men.

Marion walked out of the house alone and sought
the headland crowned with furze whence she and
Roger, a year before, had seen the *Fair Return* sail
out of the harbour.  The year had made a difference
to Marion, adding an indefinable shade of resolution
to lip and brow; there was a touch of gravity
in the quiet grey eyes, a hint of ripening in the
girlish figure.

Something more than the restlessness of spring had
driven Marion to the solitude of the cliff side,
something more than the emptiness of the house which
Simone had just left for a visit to her French home,
something more than the realisation that soon she
would be in Kensington again with her aunt.

Marion walked idly about the headland, pacing to
and fro along the grassy stretch.  From time to time
her eyes swept the sunlit Channel.  Presently she
climbed to a higher ridge of the slope and sat down on
the stone ledge that gave a view of the harbour.

A soft haze clung to the river mouth, and through
it the spikes of the masts rose with a gentle motion.
Suddenly Marion sprang to her feet and ran along a
few yards to a higher point of the headland.  Among
the small fishing boats of the Garth men she could
clearly discern the lines of a larger vessel.  With her
hand shading her eyes she studied the rig of the
newcomer.  Men were still busy on her decks.  She had
clearly just sailed into port.

As Marion stood, there was the sound of approaching
footsteps on the hillside.  She dropped her hand,
turned, and remained motionless, her fingers plucking
at the fold of her gown.  A tall, bronzed figure,
walking with a seaman's roll, was bearing round the cliff.

A wave of colour ran over Marion's face as the
figure approached, and for a few seconds she struggled
with a wild desire to turn and flee.

Then she heard her own voice speaking, and only a
slight tremor, a deeper tone, betrayed her feeling.

'You always were a very sudden person, Roger,'
she said.

Roger tossed his seaman's cap on the ground and
gently took her hands.  The dark eyes, with gold
lights dancing in the brown, looked merrily into the
steady grey ones.  The look sobered, and Marion's
glance fell.  She did not see the brown eyes run over
her face and shining, red-gold hair.

For a long second they stood thus.  Then Roger
suddenly dropped his face into the hands he held.

With a tremulous laugh Marion withdrew her fingers
and lightly touched the dark head.

'There's that patch of hair as stiff as ever,' she said.

Roger ran his hand over his head with the old,
rueful expression.

'I know,' he said.  'And I shall grow bald all round
it, and it will stand up so to the end.  I knew a sailor's
who stood up, harder than mine.  But never mind my
hair, Mawfy.  Let me look at you again.'

Marion turned away in silence, and they walked
along a few yards and then sat down on the rocky
ledge.  Soft airs circled the headland; sea gulls flashed
over the sapphire bar of the sea.  The sunlight, glancing
over the cliff, fell on the gold and black heads, on the
fair face and the dark face, on the slender fingers held
in the firm, brown hand.  Out in the copses the spring
song joyously rang again.

   |  *Sumer is a comen in,*
   |    *Loud sing cuccu.*
   |  *Groweth seed and bloweth mead*
   |  *And springeth the wood nu.*
   |    *Sing cuccu.*

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