“What did you say to them? How did you persuade them?” she cried. “We persuaded them, my dear madam,” said Rupert, laughing, “by knocking them down and tying them up. But what is the matter?” To the surprise of every one the old lady walked slowly back to her seat by the window. “Do I understand,” she said, with the air of a person about to begin knitting, “that you have knocked down Mr Burrows and tied him up?” “We have,” said Rupert proudly; “we have resisted their oppression and conquered it.” “Oh, thanks,” answered the old lady, and sat down by the window. A considerable pause followed. “The road is quite clear for you, madam,” said Rupert pleasantly. The old lady rose, cocking her black eyebrows and her silver crest at us for an instant. “But what about Greenwood and Burrows?” she said. “What did I understand you to say had become of them?” “They are lying on the floor upstairs,” said Rupert, chuckling. “Tied hand and foot.” “Well, that settles it,” said the old lady, coming with a kind of bang into her seat again, “I must stop where I am.” Rupert looked bewildered. “Stop where you are?” he said. “Why should you stop any longer where you are? What power can force you now to stop in this miserable cell?” “The question rather is,” said the old lady, with composure, “what power can force me to go anywhere else?” We both stared wildly at her and she stared tranquilly at us both. At last I said, “Do you really mean to say that we are to leave you here?” “I suppose you don't intend to tie me up,” she said, “and carry me off? I certainly shall not go otherwise.” “But, my dear madam,” cried out Rupert, in a radiant exasperation, “we heard you with our own ears crying because you could not get out.” “Eavesdroppers often hear rather misleading things,” replied the captive grimly. “I suppose I did break down a bit and lose my temper and talk to myself. But I have some sense of honour for all that.” “Some sense of honour?” repeated Rupert, and the last light of intelligence died out of his face, leaving it the face of an idiot with rolling eyes. He moved vaguely towards the door and I followed. But I turned yet once more in the toils of my conscience and curiosity. “Can we do nothing for you, madam?” I said forlornly. “Why,” said the lady, “if you are particularly anxious to do me a little favour you might untie the gentlemen upstairs.” Rupert plunged heavily up the kitchen staircase, shaking it with his vague violence. With mouth open to speak he stumbled to the door of the sitting-room and scene of battle. “Theoretically speaking, that is no doubt true,” Mr Burrows was saying, lying on his back and arguing easily with Basil; “but we must consider the matter as it appears to our sense. The origin of morality...” “Basil,” cried Rupert, gasping, “she won't come out.” “Who won't come out?” asked Basil, a little cross at being interrupted in an argument.