She felt instinctively through all the tumult of it that he could not look at her without a shudder, he who had always loved sun and color and richness about him—a soft skin and pleasant lips. Yet she was too near the veil, too close upon the eternal mystery, to cry out over a lost desire. “Stephen, for God’s sake, go!” She fell back on the pillow as he turned to the door and shook it, forgetting in the chaos of his thoughts that the woman Jael had turned the key. He beat upon the panels with his fist, and when the door opened for him, pushed past her without a word, and went heavily down the dark stairway to the hall where he had left his cloak and sword. My Lord Gore was within twenty yards of his own house when a figure that had been loitering in the shadow came slantwise across the road to meet him, and stopped on the footway as he passed. My lord had a glimpse of a pair of shining eyes and the white oval of a man’s face between the drooping brim of a beaver and the upturned collar of a cloak. “Good-night, my lord—fugax, fugax, solvendo non sumus.” He was pushing on with nothing more than a low, soft whistle when Stephen Gore caught him by the arm. “Blake!” “Softly, for God’s sake, sir; I have loitered here for half an hour to give you the wink and the text.” My lord still gripped his arm. “What is it, man?” “Boot and saddle for me, sir, before midnight, and the godsend of a boat across the Channel. Coleman’s correspondence has been seized.” “The fool—the Jesuit fool!” “The poor devil will be in the Protestant purgatory soon, sir. If you are wise, ride—ride. There will be bigger titles than yours, my lord, bumping in the saddle to-night.” He looked about him uneasily, and then freed himself quietly from Stephen Gore’s grip. “Your pardon, sir, but the hawks will soon be on the wing for some of us poor popish pigeons. Good-night.” “Blake, thanks for this.” “Nonsense, sir; you helped me once, and I am an Irishman. Good-night.” He went away at a good pace, leaving Stephen Gore standing on the footway, with the wind blowing his periwig about his face. He stood there for half a minute watching a faint shadow melt into the night. Then he seemed to steady himself like a tree between the gusts of a storm, and, turning, walked on slowly toward his house. But Stephen Gore did not sleep in Westminster that night, for he went alone into the stable when the grooms had gone and the servants were in bed, and saddled and bridled a horse with his own hands. He had thrown his periwig into a corner, put on the oldest clothes he could find, to ride out like a sturdy crop-head of a Britisher daring enough to venture on the roads at such an hour. Pistols, money, and food he took with him, and leading his horse out into the street, went away at a brisk trot into the black chasm of the night. He might be knocked out of the saddle at any corner, but Stephen Gore hazarded the chance, since he might be given an axe or a halter for his badge.