for many a day. In truth, for some time the coffee-houses had seen but
little of him, and it had sometimes been said that he had fled the
country to escape his creditors, or might be spending his days in a
debtors' prison, since he had no acquaintances who would care to look
for him if he were missing, and he might escape to France, or be seized
and rot in gaol, and none be the wiser.

But on a night even a little before the throwing open of Dunstanwolde
House, he sauntered into the Cocoa Tree and, having become so uncommon
a sight, several turned to glance at him.

"Egad!" one cried low to another, "'tis Jack Oxon back again. Where
doth the fellow spring from?"

His good looks it had been hard for him to lose, they being such as
were built of delicately cut features, graceful limbs, and an elegant
air, but during the past year he had often enough looked haggard,
vicious, and of desperate ill-humour, besides out of fashion, if not
out at elbow. Now his look had singularly changed, his face was
fresher, his eye brighter, though a little feverish in its light, and
he wore a new sword and velvet scabbard, a rich lace steenkirk, and a
modish coat of pale violet brocade.

"Where hast come from, Jack?" someone asked him. "Hast been into a
nunnery?"

"Yes," he answered, "doing penance for _thy_ sins, having none of my
own."

"Hast got credit again, I swear," cried the other, "or thou wouldst not
look such a dandy."

Sir John sate down and called for refreshment, which a drawer brought
him.

"A man can always get credit," he said, with an ironic, cool little
smile, "when his fortunes take a turn."

"Thou look'st as if thine had turned," said his companion. "Purple and
silver, and thy ringlets brushed and perfumed like a girl's. In thy
eyes 'tis a finer mop than any other man's French periwig, all know."

Sir John looked down on his shoulders at his soft rich fall of curls
and smiled. "'Tis finer," he said. "'Tis as fine for a man as a certain
beauty's, we once talked of, was for a woman."

The man who talked with him laughed with a half-sneer.

"Thou canst not forget her hair, Jack," he said, "but the lock stayed
on her head despite thee. Art going to try again, now she is a widow?"

Sir John looked up from his drink and in his eye there leapt up a devil
in spite of himself, for he had meant--if he could--to keep cool.

"Ay," he said, "by God! I am."

So when men talked of Lady Dunstanwolde 'twas not unnat