“A spy!” she exclaimed. “Oh, do not say so!”

““Well, one of Boney’s agents,” he amended. “John says he has any number of them and we do not know them all by any means.”

“But what should a French agent want with your cousin?”

“I don’t know, and, to tell you the truth, I should not have thought Eustace was the kind of fellow to be of the least use to anyone,” he replied. “But depend upon it, that is what it is!” He inserted a generous portion of cold beef into his mouth and added, somewhat thickly, “I dare say we have not seen the last of that fellow, not by a very long way. Why, for anything we know we have stumbled upon a really bang-up adventure!”

It was plain that he viewed the prospect with enthusiasm. Elinor could not share it. She said, with a shiver, “I wish you will not talk so! If it were true, only consider what might happen to us in this dreadful house!”

“Just what I was thinking,” nodded Nicky, spreading mustard over another portion of beef. “There is no saying indeed! I shall stay here.”

“Well, I shall not!” declared Elinor tartly. “I have no desire to lead a life of such adventure!”

“You would not like to catch one of Boney’s agents?” said Nicky incredulously.

“Not at all. I should not know what to do with him if I did. Yes, I should, though! I should set your horrid dog to guard him!”

“Yes, and he would do so, wouldn’t he?” grinned Nicky. “Oh, Cousin Elinor, would you be so very obliging as to let the old fellow out of the stables? I told Barrow to do so, but he would not. He is a paltry creature!”

“Will he bite me if I do?” demanded Elinor.

“Oh, I should not think he would do so!” Nicky said encouragingly. “But pray do not let him make off! I should not like Sir Matthew’s cursed keepers to shoot him.”

“I should!” retorted Elinor, going off to release the prisoner.

Bouncer, so far from offering to bite her, greeted her as a benefactress from whom he had been parted for years. He jumped up at her several times, barking on a high, ear-splitting note, dashed three times round the stable yard at speed, and finally brought her an unwieldy branch of wood which he seemed to think she might like to throw for him. She declined to enter upon a sport of which, she guessed, he would not readily tire, and invited him to accompany her to the house. Picking up his branch, he trotted along beside her. He would have carried his toy into the hall had she not prevented him. Since he remained deaf to her adjurations to him to drop it, she laid hold of one end and tried to pull it away from him. Pleased that she was ready to play a game he knew and liked, he threw himself wholeheartedly into a tug of war, growling in a bloodcurdling way and wagging his tail furiously. Fortunately, since Elinor was no match for him, the groom came round the corner of the house just then, and Bouncer, perceiving him, let go of the branch in order to chase him back to his proper quarters. Elinor hastily threw the branch into a thicket of brambles. Bouncer soon returned to her, prancing along in the manner of a dog who has acquitted himself well, and cocked his ears at her expectantly. He consented to accompany her into the house but obviously thought poorly of her taste in choosing to be indoors on a fine morning. But when she took him upstairs to Nicky’s room nothing could have exceeded his joy at being reunited with the master whom he had not seen for ten hours. He leaped up onto the bed, uttering screaming barks, and ecstatically licked Nicky’s face. After that, being forcibly adjured thereto, he jumped down again, cast himself down by the fire, and lay panting.

“What he needs, of course, is a good run,” said Nicky, fondly regarding him.

“Oh, yes?” said Elinor politely.

“I was only thinking, Cousin, that if you did happen to be going out for a walk you might like to take him with you,” he explained.

“I know that that is what you were thinking,” she returned. “I am well able to imagine what that walk would be like, I thank you!”

“Oh, but he is quite well behaved now!” Nicky assured her. “I have very nearly trained him not to. kill chickens or chase sheep, and if only you do not meet any other dogs you will not have the least trouble with him.”

“He has already had a very nice run, chasing the groom,” said Elinor hardheartedly. “And I do not mean to go out walking today.”

“Oh, well, I dare say I shall be able to take him myself presently!” he said.

“You will not get up today!”

“Not get up? Good God, of course I shall! There is nothing amiss with me beyond this hole in my shoulder!”

She extracted a promise that at least he would not get up until Dr. Greenlaw had seen him, and went off to confer with Mrs. Barrow. By the time she had emerged from the kitchen the doctor’s gig was at the door and he was taking off his greatcoat in the hall. She was able to give him a comfortable account of his patient, but begged him as she led him upstairs not to permit of Nicky’s leaving his bed that day. He said dryly that he doubted whether anyone could keep Nicky in bed if he had taken it into his head to get up.

“I wish his brother were here!” she said.

“Ay, Mr. Nicholas would mind him,” he agreed.

“I hold myself entirely to blame for what has happened!”

He looked surprised. “I am sure I do not know why you should, ma’am.”

She recollected that Nicky had not taken him into his confidence, and said quickly, “For permitting him to remain here last night, I mean!”

“Ah, well!” he said. “If it is not one thing with Mr. Nick, it must needs be another! He has taken no serious hurt, ma’am.”

When he saw Nicky, he found that the wound was healing quite as well as could be expected and that the pulse, though a little fast, was by no means tumultuous. He condemned in round terms the breakfast which he learned, upon inquiry, that Nicky had consumed, and said that he would bleed him, to be on the safe side.

“Oh, no, you will not!” Nicky said, drawing the bedclothes up to his chin.

“Ay, but I will, Mr. Nick,” said Greenlaw, once more getting out his bag of instruments. “We do not want to run the risk of any fever.”

“I have no fever, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you cup me!”

“Now, sir, you know I have often done so and you have been the better for it!”

Nicky would by no means allow it to have been so and vociferated his protests so loudly that Bouncer sat up, bristling. He had not so far paid any heed to the doctor, with whom he was acquainted, but he now clearly perceived that his attitude was menacing and with a growl of warning he bounded up onto the bed and stood astride Nicky’s legs, daring Greenlaw to touch him.

Nicky gave a shout of laughter and grasped him by the scruff of his neck. “Good dog, Bouncer! Sick him off, then!”

“Very well,” said Greenlaw, smiling reluctantly. “But if you are in a high fever by nightfall do not blame me, sir!”

After this episode, Elinor was not surprised, an hour later, to encounter Nicky somewhat shakily negotiating the stairs. He was wearing a dressing gown of such startling design and varied color that she blinked at him. He told her that he had bought it in Oxford and that it was all the crack. “Only fancy that old rascal’s wanting to bleed me!” he said. “Why, I must have lost pints already, for I’m as weak as a cat!”

“Of course you are, and you should be in bed!” she said. “You must lie on the sofa in the bookroom, and, mind! If you do not stay there quietly to bed you must and shall go!”

He made a face at her but he was glad enough to stretch himself out on the sofa and to allow her to rearrange his sling more comfortably. But he became; very recalcitrant when Barrow brought in a bowl of gruel, and said that if there was any ale in the house he would like a tankard of it, with a sandwich to eat with it. These being firmly denied him, he agreed to compromise with a bowl of chicken broth and a glass of white wine whey. Having disposed of this light repast, he then settled down to discuss exhaustively with Elinor what ought next to be done to entrap the foe. He had not pursued the subject very far however, when the front doorbell clanged in the distance, and Bouncer rose, growling.

Such was the irritation of nerves which Elinor labored under that she could not repress a start or banish from her mind the fear that whoever stood at the front door had come to the house with a fell purpose in view. Something of the same nature seemed to be in Nicky’s brain too, for he sat with his head a little tilted, listening intently. Bouncer padded over to the door and set his nose to the crack under it, tail and hackles well up. Barrow crossed the hall in his usual leisurely fashion, and a murmur of voices sounded. Bouncer’s bristles sank and he began to wag his tail and to snuff loudly .. “It’s Ned!” exclaimed Nicky, his face lightening.

“Oh, I do hope it is indeed!” cried Elinor, and ran to the door, and opened it.

She would not have believed, twenty-four hours earlier, that the sight of that tall figure in the long, many-caped driving coat could be so welcome to her. “Thank God you are come, my lord!” she uttered in accents of heartfelt relief. Then her eyes alighted on a little old lady standing beside Carlyon, in an old-fashioned bonnet and a drab pelisse over a plain, round gown and a spencer, and she cried out, “Becky!” and started forward to clasp the little lady in a warm embrace.

“My love!” said Miss Beccles. “My dear Mrs. Cheviot!”

“Oh, Becky, pray do not call me so!” Elinor begged. She turned to Carlyon, her cheeks in a glow. “I had no notion you meant to bring her to me so speedily, sir! I am so very much obliged to you! Oh, dear, it makes me wish more than ever that I had not served you such a trick—! I do not know what you will say when you hear of it, but indeed I never dreamed when I let him stay—But do pray come into the bookroom!”