, "I'll make a small
confession. Here is my charm. Salute it!"

He cast on the table the Indian moccasin which had been shown the same
party at the Green Lion a few evenings before. Eager hands reached for
it.

"Treachery!" cried Castleton. "I bid Du Mesne four pounds for the shoe
myself."

"Oh ho!" said Pembroke, "so you too were after it. Well, the long purse
won, as it doth ever. I secretly gave our wandering wood ranger,
ex-galley slave of France, the neat sum of twenty-five pounds for this
little shoe. Poor fellow, he liked ill enough to part with it; but he
said, very sensibly, that the twenty-five pounds would take him back to
Canada, and once there, he could not only get many such shoes, but see
the maid who made this one for him, or, rather, made it for herself. As
for me, the price was cheap. You could not replace it in all the
Exchange for any money. Moreover, to show my canniness, I've won back
its cost a score of times this very night."

He laughingly extended his hand for the moccasin, which Wilson was
examining closely.

"'Tis clever made," said the latter. "And what a tale the owner of it
carried. If half he says be true, we do ill to bide here in old England.
Let us take ship and follow Monsieur du Mesne."

"'Twould be a long chase, mayhap," said Pembroke, reflectively. Yet each
of the men at that little table in the gaming room of the Green Lion
coffee-house ceased in his fingering the cards, and gazed upon this
product of another world.

Pembroke was first to break the silence, and as he heard a footfall at
the door, he called out:

"Ho, fellow! Go fetch me another bottle of Spanish, and do not forget
this time the brandy and water which I told thee to bring half an hour
ago."

The step came nearer, and as it did not retreat, but entered the room,
Pembroke called out again: "Make haste, man, and go on!"

The footsteps paused, and Pembroke looked up, as one does when a strange
presence comes into the room. He saw, standing near the door, a tall and
comely young man, whose carriage betokened him not ill-born. The
stranger advanced and bowed gravely. "Pardon me, sir," he said, "but I
fear I am awkward in thus intruding. The man showed me up the stair and
bade me enter. He said that I should find here Sir Arthur Pembroke, upon
whom I bear letters from friends of his in the North."

"Sir," said Pembroke, rising and advancing, "you are very welcome, and I
ask pardon for my unwitting speech."