"You need not ride very far," Halfman suggested. "A little way on the road you can slip aside unseen and get back here by a bridle-path. Watch at the western gate of the park. His horse will be waiting for him there to carry him to Cambridge. After his tender leave-taking he will come to his exit a clear mark on the white garden-path for a steady hand holding a pistol. So you can whistle 'Good-night, cuckoo,' as you haste to o'ertake the King." "'Tis an ingenious scheme," Sir Rufus mused. Halfman laughed grimly. "Oh, I am a pattern of strategy; this is but a simple ambuscado, a tame trap. You are a sure shot, I know; you cannot miss your bird. You need waste no time in making sure that he is stark. I shall be at hand to make sure, and will soon stick him in a ditch to wait for judgment." Sir Rufus clapped Halfman on the shoulder. "Your wit has a most pleasant invention," he approved. "She will soon forget this whining wry-face." Halfman disengaged himself from the pressure of his companion's hand. "It is so to be hoped," he said, drearily; "it is so to be believed. Woman's love-memory is a kind of quicksand that can swallow a score or so of gallant gentlemen and show no trace of their passage." "A curse on your poppycoddle," Sir Rufus grumbled. "I must be stirring. I should like him to know that I killed him." "If I find any breath in him I will tell him," Halfman affirmed. "Your honor over-refines your pleasant purpose. The pith is that he be killed. Remember the western gate." In another moment Halfman was alone, listening to the sound of spurred heels on the stairway, as Sir Rufus hastened to join the King. "Love of woman leads us to strange issues," he said to himself, with a wintry smile. "Cavalier, Puritan, and poor Jack here, we all love the same lady, and here be two of us clapping palms together to kill the third." XXXI HALFMAN DISPOSES Brilliana came in from the garden. Halfman heard her step and turned. She was pale with many emotions; he never had seen her more beautiful. "The King has gone, friend," she said; "God bless him for his clemency." "My heart does not sing because a Puritan lives," Halfman answered, sourly. He stared into the fire again and saw burning towns between the dogs. Brilliana paused for a moment and then came a little closer to him. "We have ever been friends," she said, softly. There was a note of timidity in her voice, new to Halfman, and he turned in surprise. "Indeed," he said, roundly. "We have been fellow-soldiers," Brilliana went on, still with that curious hesitancy that sat so strangely upon her. "We have shared a siege. I have a secret to tell you." Halfman felt a sudden uncanny warning of danger. "A secret," he repeated, staring at her. Brilliana was outblushing all things red--peony, poppy, flamingo, anything. "You have always loved me, Hobbin?" she asked, half timorously. "I have always loved you," he answered, slowly, with a rigid face.