At a glance she knew him, then, for the man of her dreams, guided to her door by that Providence to whose beneficence she already owed so much. He had business in town, he announced--at Court, he added. It might detain him there some little while. He required lodgings perhaps for a week, perhaps for longer. Could she provide them? She could, indeed, for a week, and at need for longer. Mentally she registered the resolve that it should be for longer; that, if she knew her man and herself at all, it should be for life. And so at this handsome, down-at-heel gentleman’s disposal she had placed not only the best bedroom abovestairs, but also the little parlour hung in grey linsey-woolsey and gilded leather, which overlooked the garden and which normally she reserved for her own private use; and the Paul’s Head had awakened to such activity at his coming as might have honoured the advent of a peer of the realm. Hostess and drawer and chambermaid had bestirred themselves to anticipate his every wish. The cook had been flung into the street for overgrilling the luscious marrow-bones that had provided his first breakfast, and the chambermaid’s ears had been soundly boxed for omission to pass the warming-pan through the Colonel’s bed to ensure of its being aired. And although it was now a full month since his arrival, and in all that time our gentleman had been lavishly entertained upon the best meat and drink the Paul’s Head could offer, yet in all that time there had been--I repeat--neither mention of a reckoning, nor question of his means to satisfy it. At first he had protested against the extravagance of the entertainment. But his protests had been laughed aside with good-humoured scorn. His hostess knew a gentleman when she saw one, he was assured, and knew how a gentleman should be entertained. Unsuspicious of the designs upon him, he never dreamed that the heavy debt he was incurring was one of the coils employed by this cunning huntress in which to bind him. Her housewifely operations being ended at last--after a prolongation which could be carried to no further lengths--she overcame her hesitation to break in upon his thoughts, which must be gloomy, indeed, if his countenance were a proper index. Nothing could have been more tactful than her method, based upon experience of the Colonel’s phenomenal thirst, which, at all times unquenchable, must this morning have been further sharpened by the grilled herrings which had formed a part of his breakfast. As she addressed him now, she held in her hand the long pewter vessel from which he had taken his morning draught. “Is there aught ye lack for your comfort, Colonel?” He stirred, turned his head, to face her, and took the pipestem from between his lips. “Nothing, I thank you,” he answered, with a gravity that had been growing upon him in the last fortnight, to overcloud the earlier good-humour of his bearing.