y O'Moy returned indoors in the gathering dusk she was followed
at a respectful distance by the limping fugitive, who might, had he been
seen, have been supposed some messenger, or perhaps some person employed
about the house or gardens coming to her ladyship for instructions. No
one saw them, however, and they gained the dressing-room and thence the
alcove in complete safety.

There, whilst Richard, allowing his exhaustion at last to conquer him,
sank heavily down upon one of his sister's many trunks, recking nothing
of the havoc wrought in its priceless contents, her ladyship all
a-tremble collapsed limply upon another.

But there was no rest for her. Richard's wound required attention, and
he was faint for want of meat and drink. So having procured him the
wherewithal to wash and dress his hurt--a nasty knife-slash which had
penetrated to the bone of his thigh, the very sight of which turned her
ladyship sick and faint--she went to forage for him in a haste increased
by the fact that time was growing short.

On the dining-room sideboard, from the remains of dinner, she found and
furtively abstracted what she needed--best part of a roast chicken, a
small loaf and a half-flask of Collares. Mullins, the butler, would no
doubt be exercised presently when he discovered the abstraction. Let him
blame one of the footmen, Sir Terence's orderly, or the cat. It mattered
nothing to Lady O'Moy.

Having devoured the food and consumed the wine, Richard's exhaustion
assumed the form of a lethargic torpor. To sleep was now his
overmastering desire. She fetched him rugs and pillows, and he made
himself a couch upon the floor. She had demurred, of course, when he
himself had suggested this. She could not conceive of any one sleeping
anywhere but in a bed. But Dick made short work of that illusion.

"Haven't I been in hiding for the last six weeks?" he asked her. "And
haven't I been thankful to sleep in a ditch? And wasn't I campaigning
before that? I tell you I couldn't sleep in a bed. It's a habit I've
lost entirely."

Convinced, she gave way.

"We'll talk to-morrow, Una," he promised her, as he stretched himself
luxuriously upon that hard couch. "But meanwhile, on your life, not a
word to any one. You understand?"

"Of course I understand, my poor Dick."

She stooped to kiss him. But he was fast asleep already.

She went out and locked the door, and when, on the point of setting out
for Count Redondo's, she returned the