And then one day, quite as though it were the most natural thing in the world, his cousin Edred and Lady Arden his aunt were set free from the Tower and came home. The King had suddenly decided that they at least had had nothing to do with the plot. Lady Arden cried all the time, and, as Dickie owned to himself, "there was enough to make her." But Edred was full of half thought-out plans and schemes for being revenged on old Parrot-nose. And at last he really did arrange a scheme for getting Elfrida out of the Tower--a perfectly workable scheme. And what is more, it worked. If you want to know how it was done, ask some grown-up to tell you how Lady Nithsdale got her husband out of the Tower when he was a prisoner there, and in danger of having his head cut off, and you will readily understand the kind of scheme it was. A necessary part of it was the dressing up of Elfrida in boy's clothes, and her coming out of the Tower, pretending to be Edred, who, with Richard, had come in to visit Lord Arden. Then the guard at the Tower gateway was changed, and another Edred came out, and they all got into a coach, and there was Elfrida under the coach seat among the straw and other people's feet, and they all hugged each other in the dark coach as it jolted through the snowy streets to Arden House in Soho. Dickie, feeling very small and bewildered among all these dangerous happenings, found himself suddenly caught by the arm. The nurse's hand it was. "Now," she said, "Master Richard will go take off his fine suit, and----" He did not hear the end, for he was pushed out of the room. Very discontentedly he found his way to his panelled bed-closet, and took off the smart velvet and fur which he had worn in his visit to the Tower, and put on his every-day things. You may be sure he made every possible haste to get back to his cousins. He wanted to talk over the whole wonderful adventure with them. He found them whispering in a corner. "What is it?" he asked. "We're going to be even with old Parrot-nose," said Edred, "but you mustn't be in it, because we're going away, and you've got to stay here, and whatever we decide to do you'll get the blame of it." "I don't see," said Richard, "why I shouldn't have a hand in what I've wanted to do these four years." He had not known that he had known the tutor for four years, but as he said the words he felt that they were true. "There is a reason," said Edred. "You go to bed, Richard." "Not me," said Dickie of Deptford firmly. "If we tell you," said Elfrida, explaining affectionately, "you won't believe us." "You might at least," said Richard Arden, catching desperately at the grand manner that seemed to suit these times of ruff and sword and cloak and conspiracy--"you might at least make the trial." "Very well, I will," said Elfrida abruptly. "No, Edred, he has a right to hear. He's one of us. He won't give us away. Will you, Dickie dear?" "You know I won't," Dickie assured her.