“That is soon afforded.” Holles, too, spoke quietly. “This lady, your grace, is a friend of mine, an ... an old friend. I did not know it until ... until I had conveyed her hither. Upon discovering it, I would have escorted her hence again, and I was about to do so when your grace arrived. I have now to ask you to pledge me your word of honour that you will do nothing to prevent our peaceful departure--that you will offer no hindrance either in your own person or in that of your servants.” For a long moment, Buckingham stood considering him without moving from the spot where he stood, midway between Holles and the girl, his shoulder to the latter. Beyond a heightening of the colour about his eyes and cheekbones, he gave no sign of emotion. He even smiled, though not quite pleasantly. “But how simple,” he said, with a little laugh. “Nothing, indeed, could be of a more engaging simplicity. And how touching is the situation, how romantic. An old friend of yours, you say. And, of course, because of that, the world is to stand still.” Then his voice hardened. “And should I refuse to pledge my word, what does Colonel Holles propose?” “It will be very bad for your grace,” said Holles. “Almost, I think, you threaten me!” Buckingham betrayed a faint amazement. “You may call it that.” The Duke’s whole manner changed. He plucked off his mask of arrogant languor. “By God!” he ejaculated, and his voice was rasping as a file. “That is enough of this insolence, my man. You’ll unlock that door at once, and go your ways, or I’ll call my men to beat you to a jelly.” “It was lest your grace should be tempted to such ungentle measures that I took the precaution to lock the door.” Holles was smooth as velvet. “I will ask your grace to observe that it is a very stout door and that the lock is a very sound one. You may summon your lackeys. But before they can reach you, it is very probable that your grace will be in hell.” Buckingham laughed, and, even as he laughed he whipped the light rapier from its scabbard, and flung forward in a lunge across the distance which he had measured with his very practised swordsman’s eye. It was an action swift as lightning and of a deadly precision, shrewdly calculated to take the other by surprise and transfix him before he could make a move to guard himself. But swift as it was, and practised as was the Duke’s skill, he was opposed to one as swift and practised, one who had too often kept his life with his hands not to be schooled in every trick of rough-and-tumble. Holles had seen that calculating look in the Duke’s eyes as they measured the distance between them, and, because he had more than once before seen just such a calculating look in the eyes of other men and knew what followed, he had guessed the Duke’s purpose, and he had been prepared. Even as the Duke drew and lunged in one movement, so, in one movement, too, Holles drew and fell on guard to deflect that treacherous lightning-stroke.