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threw back his head and laughed long and loud. If only he had used his wits, he would have denounced the fellow where he stood. And in this realization of Ashley's guilt, and in the consciousness that Barbara must love him at least a little if she had been jealous of Sylvia, Lord Farquhart slept profoundly. XVI. All this merely brings the narrative back to the announcement made by Marmaduke to Lindley and Johan when they entered the courtyard of The Jolly Grig after the fight with the highwaymen. As may be supposed, it was several nights before Lindley was sufficiently recovered from his wound to again keep tryst with Johan, the player's boy. When at last he could ride out to the edge of the Ogilvie woods, he found the lad sitting on the ground under an oak, apparently waiting for whatever might happen. He did not speak at all until he was accosted by Lindley, and then he merely recited in a listless manner that Mistress Judith was gone to London with her father. The boy's manner was so changed, his tone was so forlorn, that Lindley's sympathy was awakened. He wondered if the lad really loved Judith so devotedly. "And that has left you so disconsolate?" he asked. "Ay, my master!" Indeed the youth's tone was disconsolate, even as a true lover's might have been. "And when went Mistress Judith to London?" asked Lindley. "This afternoon? This morning?" "But no. She went some four days ago, all in a hurry, as it seemed," Johan answered. "Four days ago!" echoed Lindley. "But why did you not send me word?" He was thinking of the days that had been wasted with his lady near him, all unknown to him, in London. "She--I mean--I thought you would be here each night," stammered the boy, contritely, and yet his tone was listless. "I've but kept the tryst with you." Lindley looked at the boy curiously. Preoccupied as he was with his own thoughts, he still recognized the change in his companion. "What's the matter, Johan?" he asked. "You were not hurt the other night, were you? Are you still brooding on the fact that you killed your man? Are you ill? Or do you fear that I've forgot my debt? What ails you? Can't you tell me?" The questions hurried on, one after another. "Or is it Mistress Judith's absence, alone, that hurts you thus? Is she to be long in London?" "N--no. That is, I do not know," the boy made answer to the last question. "We, my master and I and all his company, go ourselves early to
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