he, if he drank another to the Earl--whom might the Saints protect.

Even as he turned to go, in the dusk at the door, framed, as it were, in
a picture, there appeared a horseman leading a tired horse, the reins
loose over his arm. Though seen only in that half light, the outline of
man and beast were familiar to the stableman. Both seemed far spent; the
horse held low its head, and sweat stood caked and thick on neck and
heaving flanks, and dripped off inside down by the hocks.

"Ye've ridden hard, sir," said the groom, bustling forward to take the
horse.

The stranger said no word, but himself led the tired animal into an
empty stall. Yet, as the groom remembered later, of the other horses in
the stable, not one raised its head, or whinnied, or took any notice
whatever as the new-comer entered.

The stableman turned to lift his lantern, and when, an instant later, he
again faced about, he stared to find himself alone; the strange horseman
was nowhere to be seen. And the horse in the stall? Him the groom knew
well; there was no possibility of mistake; it was the well-known grey on
which Lord Derwentwater had ridden away to cast in his lot with Forster.

"Mistress! Mistress!" he cried, hurrying into the house, "has his
lordship come in? He's led his grey gelding into the stable the noo, and
niver a word wad he say to me or he gaed oot. An' I'm feared a's no weel
wi' him; he was lookin' sair fashed, an' kind o' white like."

"His lordship i' the inn? Guide us!" cried the landlady, snatching up a
tallow dip and hurrying into the unlit guest-room.

"Ye hae gotten back, my lord? And is a' weel wi' your lordship?
And--e-eh! what ails--?" she gasped, as a tall figure, seated in the
great oak chair by the smouldering fire, turned on her a face wan and
drawn, disfigured by bloody streaks across the cheek. Slowly, like a man
in pain, or one wearied to the extreme of exhaustion, the seated figure
rose, stood for a moment gazing at her, and then, ere the landlady could
collect her scattered wits, it had vanished. Vanished, too, was the grey
horse that the groom had seen brought into the stable; and, what was
more, the bedding in the stall where the animal had stood was entirely
undisturbed, and showed no trace of any beast having been there.

It was long that night ere anybody slept within the walls of the old
inn, and broken was their sleep. None doubted but that the Earl was
killed, or if not killed, at least soon to di