'I understand,' he said, 'that you are upon honour not to involve me in tampering with anything disaffected? You will take no advantage whatever that may give _me_ the air of being concerned, to shelter yourself or your party?' 'You have my word for it, sir. Your honour, next to that in which we are equally concerned, is now my foremost consideration.' He nodded, then sighed, as one not very well satisfied. 'Things may come to wear a very suspicious complexion, but I must risk a little; the worse the luck. Mr. Johnson, neither of us has been very wise in the beginnings of this business.' 'I came to that conclusion rather earlier than you, sir, and on very good evidence.' 'No doubt,' growled Montague, and he muttered once or twice, 'Strephon, Corydon--Corydon, Strephon.' Then he turned unexpectedly to Kelly. 'You mentioned these letters as I was leaving the room, and I noticed that her ladyship grew white. She kept you, she knew then of the danger you were in and has just informed you of it. Now, how came she to have so particular a knowledge of your danger?' Mr. Kelly did not answer a question which boded no good for Lady Oxford. 'She had grounds of resentment against you in a certain ballad.' Kelly seized at the chance of diverting Montague from his suspicions, and showed how the ballad was aimed at him no less than at her ladyship, and, without giving the Colonel time to interrupt, 'Here I must bid you _au revoir_, sir,' he said, 'for some ten minutes, time enough for you to do what is needed, if, as I hope, you are not disturbed. The Messengers, I conceive, will be lurking for me in Ryder Street outside our common door; they will not think of preventing you from entering, and before I arrive, whatever befalls _me_, our common interest will be secured.' 'You are determined to follow?' 'What else can I do? I must know the end of this affair of the brocades. It is not wholly impossible that the Messengers have wearied of waiting, and think to take me abed to-morrow. When you have done what you know, you will leave my room, and I, if I am not taken, have some arrangements of my own to make. That, I presume, is not a breach of my engagement with you?' 'Certainly not, sir. When I have left your room I am in no sense responsible for your actions. I wish you good fortune.' While they thus walked and were sad enough, they came within ear-shot of Wogan, who, at that moment, was declaiming Mr. Pope's Night piece to Mr. Scrope, who was in the Canal. What conversation passed between the four gentlemen Wogan has already told, and he has mentioned how the Colonel went away, and how, after using pains to prevent Mr. Scrope from catching a cold, he himself withdrew to court slumber, and left Mr. Kelly alone in the moonlight.