For an instant she stands on the landing at bay. To unbolt the big door and make an open dash for freedom would mean certain death; to turn up therefrom and regain her chamber was her sole chance, and this must be done before a light could be struck. She wheeled around and rushed up the hall, up the stairs among the clustering folk, nudging she knew not whom, skipped along the narrow rear passage, and into her room before candle flames revealed to the amazed company that neither bolt, bar, or latch had been disturbed, nor anything in the house taken! Even while they rummaged in the bar-room till, counted the forks and spoons—pewter though they were, Her Ladyship, tying the luckless bundle about her waist with a hastily cut bed-cord, cautiously opened the casement, crawled out on the trellis, which unsteadied a bit beneath her weight but did not break; clambered in and out the vines to the edge, and then, lightly, thanks to her twin’s training, swung herself to the ground clear, crept across the yard, leaped the stone wall, with a bound and over; flew the width of the meadow; struck the lane, up to the high road; by the moon, took a southerly course which she knew made for Kennaston, and paused not much for breath until she had left a matter of five miles betwixt her and the Queen and Artichoke. It was coming three o’clock by this, and, all the little night winds hushed, all the earth and trees and grasses, flowers, shrubs and weeds expectant, vibrant of the nearing dawn, whose pink and beauteous herald now looked over the hill-tops at the east, and put the lingering stars to shame, and woke the little birds, and bade every drop of dew flash on cup and blade; and all the things that breathe to grow and pulsate; to thrill through all their veins with joy that still another day was born. Her Ladyship too was glad, for, brave as she had been through all the brief ordeal of her manhood, this last adventure had broken her spirit a bit, and hunger and fatigue had sadly weakened her flesh. As the lark mounted, singing to the now risen sun, she struck in a bit from the road and began an endeavor to calculate how far she might be from Kennaston village, or from any place familiar to her. But it was vain to speculate. Peggy, in all her cross-country rides, could not place the spot in which she now found herself. Food was what she needed most and she came out into the open, shading her eyes with her hand and looking everywhere about for a curl of smoke that might guide her to a cottage. But no friendly film greeted her, and her hand fell listless at her side.