"Ah, Kit, my boy," I admonished him, for I felt it incumbent on me to contribute somewhat to the general morality of such a household, "I am no more Captain Geraldine in these fine feathers than I was in the scurvy black of the lawyer's clerk." "But you feel more like Captain Geraldine," the boy said, pertinently enough. "I do, my boy, I do, for I am still subject to the vanities of the flesh." "Don't say that!" the boy cried, half angrily--"that is like they talk at meeting," and I felt ashamed I should have let slip anything before the child that could hurt his sense of my bearing towards what his mother respected, though I was puzzled to rightly estimate his own expression. "I won't, my lad, but listen!" and I gave my sword a flourish and began the rattling air, "Dans les gardes francaises J'avais un amoureux--" and then I suddenly reflected I had no right to sing these ribald songs before the boy, even though he might not understand a word, and again I was ashamed, so fell a-story-telling, and I told him tales that made even his favourites of Agag and Sisera seem pale, and the singing was forgotten. Though these constant talks with Kit, who would scarce be kept a moment from my side, were entertaining enough, and my heart warmed more and more to him as I saw his strong young feeling blossom out, I could not help the time dragging most wearisomely. The evenings were intolerable, and I felt the atmosphere absolutely suffocating at times. Mistress Routh was so completely Mistress Routh I soon realised that the Lucy in her was of a truth not only dead but buried out of my sight forever. Now if I have a failing, it is of too keen an enjoyment of the present, rather than an indulgence in unavailing regrets for the past, so that in a little I began to speculate if the Hugh Maxwell who was the Hugh Maxwell of this buried Lucy had not vanished also. Certainly I was not the Hugh Maxwell she knew. She said so herself; she showed only too plainly I had neither plot nor lot in her present life; and, after all, the life that is lived is the life that is dead. So I accepted what I had done my best to refuse, and turned again to the only life that was open before me--I went to Lady Jane's that very evening. CHAPTER V I ASSIST AT AN INTERVIEW WITH A GREAT MAN I found the household in Essex Street in a state of perturbation which was soon explained. News had come that Margaret's brother Archibald had been arrested, as Lady Jane had foreseen, and was now confined in Fort William. Margaret, though distressed greatly, was such an ardent Jacobite that I verily believe she would rather have seen her brother in some danger of losing his head than have had him out of the business altogether.