"Perhaps it would be well to tell me your story before Martin returns. You must not forget that he is half a madman, and sometimes talks wildly." Crosby told her the manner of his escape from Lenfield, as he had told it to Fairley; and if Barbara Lanison did not so obviously disbelieve it as the fiddler had done, her eyes were full of questioning. He explained how "The Jolly Farmers" had been searched, and how he and Martin had ridden away together in the night. "He told me that he had been bidden by a woman to bring me into a place of safety, and he brought me here. He would tell me nothing more." "He did not even try and picture the woman for you?" "Only his fiddle could do that, he declared." "You see how foolish he is," said Barbara. "I do not find any great sign of folly in that," Crosby answered. "I was thinking of your journey, sir. I told Martin to find you if he could and warn you; that was all I bid him do." "And my coming has displeased you," said Crosby. "I will go on the instant if it be your will." "No, no; it is my will that you tell me the remainder of the story." "There is no more to tell." "You have not told me who the man was who helped you to escape from your manor at Lenfield," said Barbara. "He desired me not to speak of him, and I must keep faith." "Yet he told you of Martin." "He spoke only of a fiddler," said Crosby. "Have I no means of persuading you to tell me his name?" she said, leaning a little across the table towards him, with a look of pleading in her eyes. Most men would have found the temptation difficult to resist. "I do not think you would try any means to make a man break his promise," Crosby said. The grey eyes looked straight into hers, and the voice had that little tone of sternness in it which she had noted that day at Newgate. "Perhaps not," she said; "but it is provoking. To have a nameless partner in such an affair as this is to have more mystery than I care for." "Did you ever hear of a Mr. Sydney Fellowes?" "So you have told me after all," she said, disappointment in her voice. He was not the strong man she supposed him to be--merely one a woman could cajole at her ease. She was too disappointed in him to realise at once how strange it was that he should speak of Sydney Fellowes. "No, this is another friend," he answered quietly, conscious of what was passing in her mind. "I know Mr. Fellowes," Barbara said, her brow clearing. "Not many days since he was here at the Abbey." "He came to see me, but since I was away from home he left a letter warning me that I had enemies. He, too, had been commissioned by someone to warn me." "Not by me," said Barbara. "Surely you must have been acting unwisely, Mr. Crosby, to have so many enemies?" "It is the number of my friends which astonishes me more," he returned. "I am wondering what it was you heard about me which made you send to help me." "It concerned the Duke of Monmouth, and was not to your credit," Barbara said.