“Well met, Jack; you are the man I want. This, Captain Grylls, is that son of mine who has sailed a ship farther than any of your sea-going bravoes.” My lord’s companion bowed and lifted his hat. He was pock-marked and somewhat overdressed, with a hook nose and a sharp, dry mouth. One of his shoulders appeared higher than the other, and his head set a little askew upon his neck. “The great navigator! Proud to approach you, sir; we are mere duck-pond gentry, some of us, though we may have fought the Dutch.” His nose wrinkled queerly when he smiled, and he displayed a row of teeth discolored by tobacco. John Gore judged the man to be a rogue, and a hanger-on to the skirts of patrons about the court. His eyes had a knack of seeming to look both ways, and no doubt he would have been pleased if he had been able to see behind him like a hare. “Attend to this little affair of mine, Grylls. I shall expect you some day this week.” “Yes, my lord; you know me to be as steady as a clock.” “Yet clocks need winding, Grylls.” The man laughed politely as though he saw the gilt edge of the jest, and, lifting his hat, moved away with the discretion of an underling who has learned to tell instantly when he is no longer wanted. My lord opened his cloak and set his hat at a happier angle. “Come along, Jack; I have business for you to-night.” Now John Gore carried one matter uppermost in his mind that evening. My lord seemed to read the nature of his son’s thoughts, and dashed any illusion with the candor of a friend. “No, nothing of that kind, Jack; I had news this morning. She is well in body, but she has not changed greatly yet in soul. Put it behind you, and wait for the best. After all, there are stirring things to be done in the world, and a maid should not make a man’s blood turn to milk.” John Gore walked on in silence, his father humming a tune that sounded very much like a chant. For my Lord Stephen was a papist, though the conversion had not come till his maturer years, and whether it had been a question of conscience or of statecraft none but a Jesuit could have explained. “Who was the man you were talking with by the Pool?” “Grylls? A poor, willing kind of rogue who has learned to make himself of use. Small fry, Jack, to float in shallow streams. I have deeper waters for you, sir, with all your guns and tackle.” There was a gleam of grimness in his eyes as he spoke. “The Bible sayeth, Jack, ‘Put not your trust in princes.’ A wise saying, truly; yet I have a wiser, and that, sir, is, ‘Put not your faith in the mob.’ Trust the sheep-dog, and watch the wag of his tail, rather than bump and scurry and run with the flock. Yonder lies our anchorage.” A house rose before them amid the trees, its windows dark save for one in the first story, and that dim with the shadow of drawn curtains. John Gore recognized it as the house of Hortense. They were crossing the ground where he had fought my Lord Pembroke that wet night in summer.