So then he looked neither before nor after, but took the straight way and the ready with her. And by and by the yapping of a pampered dog broke the silence of the house, and Lady Royd’s voice sounded, low and querulous, from the stairhead. “Nance, where are you? Poor Fido is not well--not well at all.” For the moment Rupert believed that he was home at Windyhough again. Fido’s bark, the need paramount that his wants must be served at once, were like old days. “They have not told her you are here,” said Nance. “I’ll run up and break the news.” When Rupert came into the parlour up above, Fido, true to old habit, ran yapping round him, and bit his riding-boots; for he hated men, because they knew him for a lap-dog. And, after the din had died down a little, Rupert stepped to his mother’s side, and stooped to kiss her hand. And she looked him up and down; and the motherhood in her was keen and proved, but she could forego old habits as little as could Fido. “Dear heart, what clothes to wear in Edinburgh!” she cried. “It’s as well you’re not known in the town for a Royd.” “Yes, it’s as well, mother,” he answered dryly. “You are thinner than you were, Rupert, and straighter in the shoulders, and--and many things have happened to you.” “I rode out for happenings.” “Oh, yes, you’re so like your father; and they tell me what you’ve done----” “And you, mother?” he broke in. “There are gentlemen of the Prince’s who would not be safe in France to-day without your help--yours and Nance’s.” “There, my dear, you fatigue me! I have done so little. It grew dull in Lancashire, waiting for news of your father. It was all so simple--Fido, my sweet, you will not bark at Rupert; he’s a friend--and then I had my own fortune, you see, apart from Windyhough, and one must spend money somehow, must one not? So I began playing at ships--just like a child gone back to the nursery--and Nance here was as big a baby as myself.” If Rupert had changed, so had Lady Royd. There was no faded prettiness now about her face, but there were lines of beauty. Behind her light handling of these past weeks in Edinburgh there was a record of sleepless nights, of harassed days, of discomfort and peril undertaken willingly. She had spent money in providing means of passage for the exiles; but she had spent herself, too, in ceaseless stratagem and watchfulness. “It was all so piquant,” she went on, in the old, indolent tone. “So many gallant men supped here, Rupert, before taking boat. And they brought each his tale of battle in the hills. And their disguises were so odd, almost as odd as the clothes you’re wearing now, my dear.” “The Prince’s were little better when I last saw him,” laughed the other. “Ah, now, you will sit down beside me--here--and Nance shall sit there, like Desdemona listening to Othello. And you will tell us of the Prince. You were very near his person during the Highland flight, they tell me.”