The hungry Cavalier had instinctively shaped his course through the High Street toward the Grande Place, in or about which purlieus lay the few taverns that remained open during night hours—dismal holes enough, which brought sighing remembrance of jovial London meetings. But no hostelry good or vile is a place of promise to him who, in the local parlance, “lodge but the Devil in his purse.” And much to Marcelin’s disappointment his lordship passed pensively on to outlying districts. There was, as he had admitted, as yet no definite plan in his mind; but he sought those quarters of the town where the evening fare was likely to be most succulent. Was he not to cater for a king? With one or two of the great houses which rose on the quay of the Augustines, isolated from each other by the length of high-walled gardens, he had had in earlier and slightly more prosperous days of exile a passing acquaintance. Had a forgotten shutter, an undrawn curtain, but given him a glimpse of some pleasantly lighted family repast, he would have made bold to ply knocker and bell and demand a loan, trusting to the hour of mellow conviviality and his own winning address. But not even a ray was suffered this night to send its cheerful message into the street from those carefully barred balconies and windows. The burgher filled himself from his good fleshpots—the English exile or Spanish soldier might roam, ragged and empty, in the cold. “Has monseigneur any definite purpose in making his promenade through the fog, which—saving monseigneur’s respect—is as searching as the devil? If I might venture to suggest,” murmured Marcelin at last, in tones of apologetic weariness, drawing close to Rockhurst’s elbow, “if monseigneur would visit the Three Flags tavern, or the Cellar at the Sluys Gate, he might perhaps deign to win a few pistoles from some Spanish coronel or some French gentleman prisoner on parole. Then—” “Marcelin,” interrupted Rockhurst, “the lining of our purse admits of no such suggestion, however otherwise sagacious. Do not attempt to interfere with the guidance of fate. The night is foggy, ’tis true; natheless is fog more substantial to take into your empty carcass than mere airs. These houses do not present a hospitable front, yet each one holds gold both in purse and in flagon. The question is how to get it. That question is fate’s business to solve for us. March.” He swung into as quick a pace as the uncertain gloom and the rough pavement permitted; and, as if his servant’s words had started it in his memory, began to sing, not loudly, but in a voice of some sweetness, the air of a swaggering popular Spanish song that was much on the lips, this autumn, of Don John’s soldiery. Hardly had he reached the second stave when, overhead, a window guarded with ornamental bowed iron grille-work was cautiously opened, and a woman’s voice took up the refrain as gently as a swallow twitters.