at Finsbury Fields, and when my fellow 'prentice and I
were better friends than we became later on.

The sight of this knife suddenly brought the blood to my head with a
mighty rush. For it showed that this horse waited here for Peter; and
if for Peter, for what lady was the pillion provided? I had wit enough,
without a moment's delay, to hide myself among the trees; assured that
whatever mischief was in the air, it would come at length to this
trysting place. And so it fell out.

I heard the chapel bell begin to toll ere long, and pictured in my mind
the sisters and their wards crossing devoutly from the convent garden to
the little chapel in the wood. No doubt the sleek Peter would be there
to eye them as they glided in; and when the service was done, perchance,
he would seek to make his wicked swoop on that poor, unsuspecting lamb,
and carry her off to his foul paymaster. In an hour--

What was that? I suddenly heard close to me staggering footsteps and a
stifled groan, accompanied by the hard panting of a man who laboured
with a heavy load. That they were coming my way was evident by the
crackling of the underwood and the impatience of the horse. What a year
did those two minutes seem as I waited there, sword in hand!

Then there broke into the covert a man, dragging on his arm the fainting
form of her whom, though I had not seen her for a long year, I knew in a
moment to be Rose O'Neill, my master Ludar's maiden. But what amazed me
most was the man who carried her. I had looked for Peter Stoupe to a
certainty; but instead of him I saw the taller of the two priests whom I
had passed only that morning on the way to the convent. The delusion
lasted only a moment. For as he turned his head, I saw beneath the cowl
the well-known, cadaverous, hungry visage of my masquerading 'prentice,
and knew that I was right after all.

He flung his senseless burden to the ground with a curse, and was
turning to the horse, when I stepped out, sword in hand, and faced him.
I gave him no time for parley or excuse. I heeded not the yell he sent
up as he saw who I was, and felt nothing of the one savage blow he aimed
at me with his knife. Time was short. At any moment that other
masquerading priest, whose name I guessed shrewdly enough now, might be
here on the top of us. So I had at him and ran him through the carcase,
and without waiting to look twice to see if he lived or no, or to
restore his fainting victim, I lif