"Forget? Impossible! Absolute impossible! I bear your remembrance on mine heart all de days of my life. I adore you! Farewell." When Meg, the next minute, joined Kate under the tree, there was no more sign of Ivo than if he had been the airy creature of a dream. The little pedlar had escaped dexterously, and only just in time. He hid for a moment beneath the shade of a friendly shrub, and, as soon as he saw Meg's back turned, ran downwards into the Derby road as lithely as a cat, and took the way to that city, where he recounted to his companions, when other people were supposed to be asleep, the arrangement he had made to free the Countess. "Thou art sore lacking in discretion, my son," said Father Eloy, whose normal condition was that of a private confessor in Bretagne, and whose temporary disguise was that of a horse-dealer. "Such a maid as thou describest is as certain to want and have a confidant as she is to wear that trumpery. Thou wilt find--or, rather, we shall find--the whole house up and alert, and fully aware of our intention." Ivo's shoulders were shrugged very decidedly. "_Ha, chetife_!" cried he; "she will want the crespine." "Not so much as she will want to impart her secret," answered the priest. "Who whispered to the earth, `Midas has long ears'?" "It will not matter much to Ivo, so he be not taken," said the knight. "Nor, in a sense, to you, Father, as your frock protects you. I shall come off the worst." "You'll come off well enough," responded Ivo. "You made an excellent mercer this morrow. You only need go on chaffering till you have sold all your satins, and by that time you will have your pockets well lined; and if you choose your route wisely, you will be near the sea." "Well and good! if we are not all by that time eating dry bread at the expense of our worthy friend Sir Godfrey." "Mind _you_ are not, Sir Roland," said Ivo. "Every man for himself. I always fall on my feet like a cat, and have nine lives." "Nine lives come to an end some day," replied Sir Roland, grimly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "On what art thou a-thinking thus busily, Phyllis?" "Your pardon, Mistress Perrote; I was thinking of you." "Not hard to guess, when I saw thine eyes look divers times my ways. What anentis me, my maid?" "I cry you mercy, Mistress Perrote; for you should very like say that whereon I thought was none of my business. Yet man's thoughts will not alway be ruled. I did somewhat marvel, under your pleasure, at your answer to yon pedlar that asked how you came to be hither." "Wherefore? that I told him no more?" "Ay; and likewise--" "Make an end, my maid." "Mistress, again I cry you mercy; but it seemed me as though, while you sore pitied our Lady, you had no list to help her forth of her trouble, an' it might be compassed. And I conceived [Note 1] it not."