And with that he left me, thinking very sadly I had enough of being a man. Had there been a woman in the house, I had gone to her, and told her my story. But to none of all these men did I dare to breathe my true name and state; unless, indeed, it had been to Captain Royston. And I murmured over to myself that title, which did ring so strange, and yet so proudly, in my ear. It went stiffly, too, upon the tongue that was once used to say: "Hither, Ned; not so, Ned; nay, Ned; but I _will_ have it so." Well, Ned, I thought, was ever tender with me, and I might, indeed, at a pinch, make shift to tell him my name and troubles; but--and then in my mind there lifted up his head a little devil of mischief, and I vowed I would not so tell him till I should be enforced; but, having taken a vagary to be a man, I would hold fast to my purpose, that I might from behind this mask see more of the man and to what he was grown from the boy that had been my playmate and childhood's lover. I was fain not a little, moreover, certainly, to discover with what complexion of memory he retained the thought of little Philippa Drayton. And I thought it was mightily in favor of my plan that, although on that great night of his escape from Kirke's men, we had spoken together and our hands had met, yet since I was a little maid he had never looked upon my countenance. At last I heard his step in the gallery without, and, for all its weight and its jingle of sabre and spur, I had known that footfall among many, even had I not known him in the house. Captain Royston came into the chamber, followed by him that had but now fetched candles, but bearing this time an armful of wood and a blazing pine-knot. To draw my old friend's gaze, I heaved a great sigh, and gazed sadly in the fire, and knew, though I scarce saw, his eyes to turn on me. He crossed the room to the further corner, where I could well mark him without any show of particular regard, and threw wide a small door disclosing the foot of a narrow and winding stair. "Go up," said he to the soldier, "to the room above; kindle a good fire upon the hearth; light the candles, and when the fire is well burning, return hither and stand sentry over this door till His Highness come." And as the man ascended the stair, Captain Royston closed the door behind him, and turned to me, who kept my gaze fast on the fire. "'T was a heavy sigh you heaved as I entered, young friend," he said, in a most gentle voice. "Yes, faith," I answered, "it was heavy." And again I sighed. He then asked me what it was did make me sad, and I replied I did not use to be from home, and was mighty lonesome. "Nay, lad," he cried cheerily, laying a hand of comfort on my shoulder, "'t is but till the morrow. You have to-day borne yourself like a man; be not now homesick like a very maid. There is company enough. Why didst leave the table?"