“Why—why will you hazard your life thus wantonly?” she questioned. “Nay, sir, do not prevaricate; I know ’tis your custom to walk thus solitary of a night.” “Your ladyship’s interest flatters me!” he murmured. “Surely, sir,” said she, in the same calm and gentle tones, “life is not to be thus lightly jeopardised.” “Tush, madam,” he laughed, “you grow hysterical again, ’twould seem, and ’tis a weakness of your charming sex that I have ever found extreme embarrassing, not to say wearisome. I suggest a pill ... a bolus and sleep, madam. Aye, sleep is the thing ... you shall find your megrims gone i’ the morning. So sleep you soundly, madam, and farewell!” Having said which, he bowed and departed, leaving her to watch him through slow-gathering tears. And suddenly, finding herself thus deserted, she bowed her stately head upon the old stile, wetting its ancient timbers with her tears and weeping so unfeignedly that she actually sniffed, though to be sure there was none to hear. Meanwhile Sir John, striding his solitary way, looked up at the stars and smiled happily. “She cares!” quoth he within himself. “By all the saints in heaven, she cares!” And, halting suddenly, he glanced back, minded to return. “Either she loves me, or here was marvellous good play-acting ... which, now?” Here he went on again, though very slowly, and coming to a gate, leaned there to debate the point. My lady, reaching the cottage, paused awhile, also with gaze uplifted, but saw the starry firmament blurred by smarting tears. “Alas,” sighed she, “he never loved me or he would have known! He is but the heartless Sir John Dering after all!” “The question being,” said Sir John within himself, his gaze yet uplifted to the firmament, “is she truly——” The stars seemed to shoot wildly from their courses, the earth to sway giddily beneath his feet, then to plunge horribly down and down into a roaring blackness. He awoke to a sense of pain, jolting and strangulation; slowly he became aware that he lay bound hand and foot across the withers of a horse, and with his mouth crammed almost to suffocation with a thing he took to be a neckerchief. And after some while he was conscious of two voices wrangling together—voices these that sounded vaguely familiar; and the first was hoarse and sullen, the second sharp and querulous. THE FIRST VOICE: An’ whoy not, I sez? THE SECOND VOICE: Because I won’t have it. THE FIRST VOICE: An’ ’oo be you t’ say no? I be good a man as you, aye an’ better! Ain’t I follered an’ follered ’im, waitin’ my chance? Wasn’t it me as got ’im at last? Well then, I sez we ought to finish an’ mak’ sure. THE SECOND VOICE: And I say no! THE FIRST VOICE: My lord bid us mak’ sure, didn’t ’e? THE SECOND VOICE: He’ll be sure enough once aboard ship. THE FIRST VOICE: An’ I tell ye ’e be better dead. THE SECOND VOICE: And I say, I’ll ha’ no more bloodshed.