Half an hour later, had any of the conspirators returned to the Warder's Room, they would have found no trace of what had occurred there since their departure. First, as gently as he was able, Lawrence, with Ruth's assistance, carried the wounded man to the secret passage, and laid him on the bed which she hastily prepared for him from the pillows and coverings of her own bed. That done, he stepped back into the Warder's Room, and having, with the aid of the pitcher of water, succeeded in effacing the worst of the ugly tell-tale stain upon the floor, he set the chairs overturned in the fray upon their legs again, and then busied himself in collecting the scattered pieces and splinters of the broken panel. Finally, after no small labour, not lessened by having to reach across the space occupied by the body of the unconscious Goodenough, he pieced the panel together, so that it looked, as he said, keenly surveying it when he had done, "as if catapults could have made no impression on it." "I doubt," said Ruth with a faint smile, "one must not, however, breathe on it too roughly lest it fall to pieces." "Hark! what's that?" whispered Lawrence in alarm, as a low curious burring, purring sound in the room beyond made itself audible. Placing her finger warningly on her lip, Ruth crossed the floor, and, lifting a piece of tapestry half-covering one of the walls, she disappeared; returning, however, almost immediately with a bottle of cordial in her hand, and a look of relief on her face. "Maudlin is sleeping as fast as a dormouse," she said, pouring a few drops of the bottle's contents into a cup, and moistening the wounded man's lips. "But if she should waken?" said Lawrence. "We will take difficulties only as they come," answered Ruth. "'Tis scarce likely to happen before daybreak. And long before then, Lawrence, you must be upon the road." "Upon the road! To where?" demanded Lawrence aghast. "Newmarket." [Sidenote: The warning to the King.] "The king," she went on, as he continued to stare at her in speechless astonishment, "must be warned of this danger that threatens him. And 'tis you must warn him." "I!" flashed the young man. "Ruth, what do you take me for? I play traitor? I be a turncoat?" "It is because you are not one," she answered calmly, "that you will do this. It is because you are loyal and true that you will not stand by and see this crime done." "Betray my oath?" "You never swore to taking the life of a fellow-creature; least of all your king's."