She nodded again. I considered of it for a little time, and then said: "I must not be taken here. Will your--ah--_duty_ stretch the length of showing me an unwatched door?" "There are no doors unwatched. You must stay here till nightfall." "Nay, that I will not. Will you tell me who it was set them on?" "'Twas a man you hate--and who hates you heartily in return. He saw you come here last night; he knows you are here now--or guesses it." I had no right to pry into her confidence as a thief would break into a house. But I was loath to fight my battle in the dark if she, or any one, could give me light. "His name, if you may give it, Mistress Margery. It may point the way out of this coil." "'Tis Owen Pengarvin. He was here last night when you came." Now I remembered the little man in black whom I had seen coming down the stair whilst I knocked at the door. But this left me in a greater maze than ever. "If he knows I am here, why does he let them search elsewhere?" At this she looked away from me, and I made sure I saw the sweet chin quiver when she spoke. "He has reasons of his own; reasons of--of--" but instead of telling me what they were she broke off to say: "But now you know why all the doors of this house are under guard." "Truly," said I; and therewith I fell to pacing up and down the narrow clear-way in the garret, striving to see how I might come off with nothing worse than the loss of my burdensome life. 'Twas easy to guess how this shaveling lawyer had discomfited me. Forewarned is forearmed in any soldier camp; and through his blabbing, the plan by which I had hoped to lull resentment and forestall suspicion was nipped in the bud. I saw the far-reaching consequences, and was made to know how a trapped rat will turn and fight in sheer desperation whilst the terrier is shaking him to death. When that leaven began to work in me I was fit for the daringest thing that offered; so I paused to ask if my Lord Cornwallis were yet in the house. "He is writing letters in his bed-room," was her answer. "If you will show me the way thither I shall be your poor debtor by that much more." "I will not--unless you first tell me what you mean to do." She said it firmly, but now I was fronting death and could be as firm as she. "If you will not show me the way, I shall find it for myself." So much I said; but as for telling her that I meant to save his Lordship and all the others the trouble of running me down, I could not do that. "You are going to give yourself up," she said; and when I would not deny it, she darted before me and set her back against the wainscot door. "'Tis folly, folly!" she cried. "He would but pull the bell-cord and--" "And give the order that Colonel Tarleton's sentence be executed upon me, you would say. Be it so. But in that event I can at least clear you and your father of any complicity in my hiding." "I say you shall not go!"