the perpetrator of it
without mercy, and that if I wished to spare my neck I must fly
without an instant's delay.

"I knew this but too well myself. The baron was a fearful man to
meet in his rage. Where to fly I knew not, but stay I could not. I
had bare time to rush to my room, don a dress that would not excite
inquiry if I had to lie hid in the forest a few days. I did not
think flight would be so difficult a matter, but I knew that every
moment spent in Mortimer's Keep was at peril of my life; and I had
but just made my escape through a small postern door before I heard
the alarm bell ring, the drawbridge go up, and knew that the edict
had gone forth for my instant apprehension."

He paused with a slight shudder, and seemed to be listening
intently.

"There is naught to fear here," said Bertram. "Tell me more of thy
flight."

"It was terrible," answered the man. "I had not looked to be hunted
like the wild beasts of the forest; and yet an hour had not gone by
before I heard, by the baying of the fierce hounds that are kept at
Mortimer, that a hunting party had sallied forth; and I knew that I
was the quarry. I doubled and ran like any hare. I knew the tricks
of the wild things that have skill in baffling the dogs, and at
last I reached the shelter of these walls, and ran there for
protection. I had thrown off the dogs at the last piece of water;
and in the marshy ground the scent did not lie, and could not be
picked up. For a brief moment I was safe; but I was exhausted
almost to death. I could go no further. I lay down beneath the
shadow of some arbour within the sheltering precincts of Chad, and
wondered what would become of me."

"Yes, yes! and then--?"

"Then I remembered a story told me by my grandsire, years and years
gone by, of a secret chamber at Chad, which had sheltered many a
fugitive in the hour of peril. Lying out in the soft night air, I
recalled bit by bit all that I had been told--the very drawings the
old man had made to amuse me in a childish sickness, how the door
opened, and how access was had to the chamber. I knew that the
country round would be hunted for days, and that I could never
escape the malice of the Lord of Mortimer if I pursued my way to
the sea. He would overtake and kill me before I could make shift to
gain that place of refuge. But I bethought me of the secret chamber
and its story, and methought I might slip in unseen did I but watch
my opportunity, find my way up the