"Is all well, Captain?" asked the cheery voice of M. de Rondiniacque, as he entered from the gallery. "All is well, Lieutenant," replied Royston, with a very fine assumption of carelessness. And then the officer of the watch drew near, looking down upon me, as I suppose (for my eyes were fast closed), with curiosity. "_Ma foi!_" he cried, "the peevish youth leaves you not, Captain. He is mighty pale in the face for one that sleeps." "He is little used, I think, to fatigue," replied Ned. "Is all well without, Lieutenant?" "_Mon capitaine_," said De Rondiniacque, "not a mouse stirs." And so saluted and retired as he had come. When the sound of his feet had died away, "Thank Heaven!" I whispered, "the danger is past!" "For your brother, yes," Ned answered softly. "For us it is to come." "Nay, indeed, I hope not so," said I. "And for him, how shall I thank you, Captain Royston?" "Dear child," he said, with a flash of eagerness lighting his eyes, "do not call me captain. Were I not like ere long to be a man disgraced, I could ask you for thanks, but----" And I, who had ever wholly trusted him and desired nothing so much as that he should ask in payment what had long been his, made no parley with modesty, but at once replied: "Nay, but ask, dear Ned; do but ask. You will never in my eyes be disgraced." But when he began to reply that it was a great thing he would ask, of which the granting would bear the balance well down on the other side, Dame Fate played the careful _dueña_ to the poor maid that thought herself in hands safe enough without any such protection. I mean that before Ned was well launched in that tale of what he would have of me, the door at the winding stair's foot did again open; and, of all the many times these divers doors had in the last few hours moved upon their hinges, this was the worst opening; for, wrapped in a great black cloak thrown hurriedly around him, there came His Highness of Orange. And, but that I knew none other could then come that road, I do not think I should have known him for the man that had of late bid me so kindly good-night. For over his face was a cloud of anger very awful to see. We sprang to our feet, and Captain Royston saluted. Passing this military courtesy unacknowledged, the Prince at once addressed him in a voice so harsh and with a manner so cruel (as it seemed to me) that I fell into a great fear and assurance that he had by some means discovered both too much and too little; and my heart seemed to melt to water within me, so that I despaired of ever setting my lover right in the eyes of his Prince. "You watch well over my slumbers, Captain," was indeed all he said; but voice and countenance were more than words, and I felt as I have said. "It has been my endeavor, Your Highness," answered Royston, with much dignity, and a face the color of ashes.