ressed high in front in the fashion first set for
the women by the Grand Monarque's loose-wife; and as he passed under the
candles I saw that it was graying slightly. His face, high-browed,
long-nosed, double-chinned, with the eyes womanish for bigness and
marked with brows that might have been penciled by the hair-dresser, I
had seen before; but lacking this present sight of it, the orders on
his breast would have named him the ranking general of the army in the
field--Lord Charles Cornwallis. With all the houses in the town to
choose among, I had blundered into this--my Lord's own headquarters.

I had but a passing glimpse of the incoming group, for when it was well
beneath the turn of the stair, my lady had me up and running again,
driving me on before her to the chamber floor above, along a dimly
lighted corridor with many turnings, and so to a _cul-de-sac_ in the
same--a doorless passage with a high dormer window in the end and no
other apparent means of egress.

Margery had snatched a candle from one of the corridor holders in the
flight, and now she bade me sit on the floor and draw my boots. I did
it, shamefacedly enough, being but a foul and ragged vagabond unfit to
have her come anigh me. But I might have spared my blushings for she had
turned her back and was opening a secret door in the high wainscot.

Beyond the door lay a raftered garret half filled with cast-off house
lumber and lighted and aired by two high roof windows. Into this she led
me, with a finger on her lip for silence. A hum of voices, the clinking
of glass, and now and again a hearty soldier laugh told me that my
garret was above some living-room of the house.

While I stood, boots in hand, she found a makeshift candlestick and in
a trice had spread me a pallet on an ancient oaken settle big enough to
serve for a choir stall in a cathedral.

"You'll be safe here for the night, if so be you will make no more noise
than a rat might make," she whispered. "_Mais, mon Dieu!_ 'tis a
terrible risk. How you will get off in the morning I do not know."

"Leave that to me," I rejoined. Then I remembered the portmanteau and
the promise that it should be sent hither. Here was a further
complication, and I must needs beg a boon of her. "A black boy will
bring my portmanteau in the morning. I have a decent desire to be hanged
in clean clothing; may I beg you to--"

She made a quick little gesture of impatience; at the further
complication, or at my b