"No, no, I beseech you, madam!" he cried. "They will come and seize me! Oh, please, let it be!" "But I want you set right, Dick." "Oh, no!" he persisted. "I would rather--far, far rather not. Ah, madam, to be taken back before all those fine gentleman and disgraced as a liar!" "But you are not a liar." "No; but how prove it?" he said piteously. "They do so confuse a person. They talk with two meanings, and one can't tell which to answer. Whatever you say they laugh, and make it sound different. Dear Lady Dorothy, keep me from them!" "Well," she said, "we'll say no more about it at present. But, my child, 'tis months since your adventure at Lumley. Think you any of those teasing gentlemen would remember your face if they saw you?" But Dick could not be argued out of his terror. The sight of a Cavalier would almost have killed him with apprehension. "Had you dealt direct with the King, Dick, you would stand in danger of recognition if he met you. He never forgets a face, once seen, be it peer's or pauper's." "I didn't see the King," said Dick. He begged her ladyship so earnestly not to stir in the matter, and to keep his very name from everyone, that at length she consented. She would not wholly sympathize with his fears, however, and tried, sometimes by coaxing and sometimes by laughing, to persuade him out of them. But Dick's chief sorrow was that he could not interest her in Giles. Lady Dorothy dismissed the mention of him with a little gesture of disgust. A stable-helper, tramping the road in tatters, taking the first job that came, was distinctly disagreeable to her. "Tell me all the rest as often as you will, Dick," she would say, laughing. "But, if you love me, spare me Giles."