And so it came about that the Prince, with a growth of courtesy forced upon him by Sir Michael's bearing, did promise in half an hour's time to hear his story in defence of the accused, asking very civilly his host's permission to walk with his suite in the garden that he spied from the windows until the time were past. So--the Prince and his following walking abroad; my father despatching Simon and others not only with refreshment for the gentlemen, but also great tankards of ale and other good things to the soldiers of the escort; Ned with his guard, moreover, being quartered for this momentous half-hour in my father's little chamber on the ground floor; and I, like Sister Anne in the tale of Bluebeard and his many wives, being posted on the roof of the turret, and, beneath a flag that would not at all, in the light breeze that there was, spread itself to my liking, watching with an old spy-glass to my eye for the horseman that should by his coming make us all happy again--there was left in the hall none but the luckless cause of this present phase of our troubles. M. de Rondiniacque at least thought himself alone; and since he is of a nature very generous and candid, who so unhappy as he? CHAPTER XIX M. de Rondiniacque had little reason to hope for anything better than a second rebuff if he pursued the Prince to plead Royston's cause in the garden. He therefore sat him down in the hall where they had left him, to ponder miserably enough the mischief he had done. But scarce, being wont at times to speak to himself aloud, had he cried: "_Mort de ma vie!_ but if poor Royston suffer for this, I will forswear all and turn monk" (wholly forgetting, as he was at times not a little used, the grave cause of his expatriation), when there ran lightly out from the shelter formed by the hanging that was before the door that leads to the kitchens, who but little Prue? Now, it was not far from this door that Mr. Bentinck had stood while he read the letters brought by the courier, and it was at this point that Prudence now paused, and stooping, raised from the floor a sheet of thin paper, twice folded, which it soon appeared she had from her cover observed that gentleman to let fall. Holding this behind her back, she addressed M. de Rondiniacque. "'T is a mighty fine business, Master Foreigner," she said. "See how you have embroiled everything with this love of kissing! It is like enough you have by this means cost an honest man his life." "'T is all true that you say," replied he; "yet I cannot tell how you should know it, if you have not wilfully listened since ever your mistress sent you from this place."