But the rill joins the river at last; and ofttimes suddenly and at a bound, as it were. On this very day, while I cantered easily southward with my face set toward St. Albans, Providence was at work shaping a niche for me in the lives of certain people who were at the time as unconscious of my existence as I was of theirs. In a great house in the Barbican in London there was much stealthy going and coming on this February afternoon and evening. Behind locked doors, and in fear and trembling, mails were being packed and bags strapped, and fingers almost too delicate for the task were busy with nails and hammers, securing this and closing that. The packers knew nothing of me, nor I of them. Yet but for me all that packing would have been of no avail; and but for them my fate might have been very different. Still, the sound of the hammer did not reach my ears, or, doing so, was covered by the steady tramp of the roadster; and no vision, so far as I ever heard, of a dusty youth riding Londonward came between the secret workers and their task. I had made up my mind to sleep at St. Albans that night, and for this reason, and for others relating to the Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, in which county Stony Stratford lies, I pushed on briskly. I presently found time, however, to examine the packet of letters of which I had made spoil. On the outer wrapper I found there was no address, only an exhortation to be speedy. Off this came, therefore, without ceremony, and was left in the dirt. Inside I found two sealed epistles, each countersigned on the wrapper, "Stephen Winton." "Ho! ho!" said I. "I did well to take them." Over the signature on the first letter--it seemed to be written on parchment--were the words, "Haste! haste! haste!" This was the thicker and heavier of the two, and was addressed to Sir Maurice Berkeley, at St. Mary Overy's, Southwark, London. I turned it over and over in my hands, and peeped into it, hesitating. Twice I muttered, "All is fair in love and war!" And at last, with curiosity fully awake, and a glance behind me to make sure that the act was unobserved, I broke the seal. The document proved to be as short and pithy as it was startling. It was an order commanding Sir Maurice Berkeley forthwith in the Queen's name, and by the authority of the Council, and so on, and so on, to arrest Katherine Willoughby de Eresby, Duchess of Suffolk, and to deliver her into the custody of the Lieutenant of the Tower, "These presents to be his waranty for the detention of the said Duchess of Suffolk until her Grace's pleasure in the matter be known."