"Since Mr. Fellowes has apologised, and you have commanded, I have no alternative," said Rosmore. "If Mr. Fellowes resents my attitude he may find a time and an opportunity to force me to a better one." "Come, Martin, we must hear the whole story," said Sir John, and then he whispered to Rosmore as they crossed the hall together: "He is certain to be right, Martin invariably hears news, good or bad, before anyone else." "May we all hear it?" asked Mrs. Dearmer. "Why, surely," Martin Fairley exclaimed. "Monmouth was always interesting to ladies, and he may, as likely as not, set up his court at St. James's before another moon is at the full." They followed Sir John and Lord Rosmore back into the room which they had left so hurriedly a few moments ago, and as Martin Fairley went in after them he drew his bow across the strings of his fiddle, sounding just half a dozen quick notes in a little laughing cadenza. "He is going to sing his tale to us," said Branksome, rather bored with the whole proceeding. "He is quite mad," answered Mrs. Dearmer, "but I fancy Abbot John is somewhat afraid of him." The little sequence of notes made Barbara Lanison start, she had heard it so often. When she was a child Martin had told her fairy tales, and he constantly finished the story by playing just these notes, a sort of musical comment to the end of a tale in which prince and princess lived happily ever afterwards. When he had been thinking out some difficult point he would play this cadenza as a sign that he had come to a decision. Once when Barbara had been ill, and got well again, he had played it two or three times in rapid succession. If he declared he was busy when Barbara wanted to go to him, he would tell her she might come when she heard his fiddle laugh, and these notes were the laugh, always the same notes. They had evidently some meaning for him, and they had come to have a meaning for Barbara. They were a link between her and this strange mad friend of hers. When she heard them she always felt that Martin had something to tell her, or could help her in any difficulty she was in at the moment. "Mistress Lanison." She started. She was almost unconscious that the people who had surrounded her just now had gone and closed the door. She was alone in the hall with Sydney Fellowes, from whom a few moments ago she had cried out to be delivered. "Mistress Lanison, I ask your pardon for to-night. Forget it, blot it out of your memory, if you can. If some day you would deign to set me a task whereby I might prove my repentance, I swear you shall be humbly served. Against your will, perhaps, you have picked me out of the gutter. Please God, I'll keep out of it. Thank you for all you have done for me."