n doorway into a great hall with frescoed walls all
ruined by neglect. At the back of the hall a marble staircase, guarded
by a pair of marble lions, ran up to a landing and divided. Wogan set
foot on the staircase and heard an exclamation of surprise. He looked
up. A burly, good-humoured man in the gay embroideries of a courtier was
descending towards him.

"You?" cried the courtier. "Already?" and then laughed. He was the only
man whom Wogan had seen laugh since he drove into Bologna, and he drew a
great breath of hope.

"Then nothing has happened, Whittington? There is no bad news?"

"There is news so bad, my friend, that you might have jogged here on a
mule and still have lost no time. Your hurry is clean wasted," answered
Whittington.

Wogan ran past him up the stairs, and so left the hall and the open
doorway clear. Whittington looked now straight through the doorway, and
saw the carriage and the lady on the point of stepping down onto the
kerb. His face assumed a look of extreme surprise. Then he glanced up
the staircase after Wogan and laughed as though the conjunction of the
lady and Mr. Wogan was a rare piece of amusement. Mr. Wogan did not hear
the laugh, but the lady did. She raised her head, and at the same moment
the courtier came across the hall to meet her. As soon as he had come
close, "Harry," said she, and gave him her hand.

He bent over it and kissed it, and there was more than courtesy in the
warmth of the kiss.

"But I'm glad you've come. I did not look for you for another week," he
said in a low voice. He did not, however, offer to help her to alight.

"This is your lodging?" she asked.

"No," said he, "the King's;" and the woman shrank suddenly back amongst
her cushions. In a moment, however, her face was again at the door.

"Then who was he,--my postillion?"

"Your postillion?" asked Whittington, glancing at the servant who held
the horses.

"Yes, the tall man who looked as if he should have been a scholar and
had twisted himself all awry into a soldier. You must have passed him in
the hall."

Whittington stared at her. Then he burst again into a laugh.

"Your postillion, was he? That's the oddest thing," and he lowered his
voice. "Your postillion was Mr. Charles Wogan, who comes from Rome
post-haste with the Pope's procuration for the marriage. You have helped
him on his way, it seems. Here's a good beginning, to be sure."

The lady uttered a little cry of anger, and her face