On his departure the Council broke up. His Majesty retiring. Before he went, a word was said about me, and some who had greater regard for the _post factum_ than the _p[oe]nitentia_ were for sending me to the Compter, and leaving the Law Officers to deal with me. But my lord, rousing himself, interposed roundly, spoke for me and would have given bail had they persisted. Seeing, however, how gravely he took it, and being inclined to please him, they desisted, and I was allowed to go, on the simple condition that the Duke kept me under his own eye. This he very gladly consented to do. Nor was it the only kindness he did me, or the greatest; for having heard from me at length and in detail all the circumstances leading up to my timely intervention, he sent for me a few days later, and placing a paper in my hands bade me read the gist of it. I did so, and found it to be a free pardon passed under the Great Seal, and granted to Richard Price and Mary Price his wife for acts and things done by them jointly or separately against the King's Most Excellent Majesty, within or without the realm. It was at Eyford he handed me this; in the oak parlour looking upon the bowling-green; where I had already begun to wait upon him on one morning in the week, to check the steward's accounts and tallies. The year was nearly spent, but that autumn was fine, and the sunlight which lay on the smooth turf blended with the russet splendour of the beech trees that rise beyond. I had been thinking of Mary and the quiet courtyard at the Hospital, which the bowling-green somewhat resembled, being open to the park on one side only; and when perusing the paper, my lord smiling at me, I came to her name--or rather to the name that was hers and yet mine--I felt such a flow of love and gratitude and remembrance overcome me as left me speechless; and this directed, not only to him but to her--seeing that it was her advice and her management that had brought me against my will to this haven and safety. The Duke saw my emotion and read my silence aright. "Well," he said. "Are you satisfied?" I told him that if I were not I must be the veriest ingrate living. "And you have nothing more to ask?" he continued, still smiling. "Nothing," I said. "Except--except that which it is not in your lordship's power to grant." "How?" said he, with a show of surprise and resentment. "Not satisfied yet? What is it?" "If she were here!" I said. "If she were here, my lord! But Dunquerque----" "Is a far cry, eh! And the roads are bad. And the seas----" "Are worse," I said gloomily, looking at the paper as Tantalus looked at the water. "And to get word to her is not of the easiest." [Illustration: SHE WAS MAKING MARKS ON THE TURF WITH A STICK] "No," the Duke said. "Say you so? Then what do you make of this, faint-heart?" And he pointed through the open window.