“Yes, and I crept after him down the stairs. There was never anything like it! To think of such an adventure’s happening, and all because I was rusticated! I never expected any very particular good tocome from that, you know, but only fancy!”

“A very observable instance of the workings of Providence,” agreed Carlyon. “How came you to be shot?”

“Oh, that was the most cursed mischance! The fellow was making for this room, and I had reached the foot of the stairs, when all at once he stopped and looked about him. I stepped back quickly that he might not see me, and what must I do but fall over that stupid suit of armor Cousin Elinor must needs keep at the bottom of the stairs!”

“I do not keep it there!” said Elinor indignantly. “I found it there!”

“Well, I do not know how that may be but I should have thought you would have moved it to a better place. However, it’s no matter, except that it ruined all. I had your pearl-mounted pistol in my hand, Ned, and I shouted out to the fellow to stand, for I had him covered, but he fired at me before I well knew what he would be about, and over I went again. I shot at once and smashed the lantern he was carrying, but I don’t think I can have hit him, for he escaped by the front door before anyone could come to my aid. And the devil of it is that I still don’t know what it is that he wants, and I have a great fear that now he knows the game is up he will not come again. I have made wretched work of it!”

“Yes, it is a pity he should have discovered your presence,” agreed Carlyon. “However, it is of no use to repine over what cannot be mended. This is certainly very interesting, Nicky.”

“Yes, indeed! Was it not diverting?” struck in Elinor.

He looked at her thoughtfully, but said nothing.

“What are you thinking, Ned?” asked Nicky eagerly.

“I was wishing John had not gone back to London,” Carlyon replied unexpectedly. “Never mind! He will be here again the day after tomorrow!”

“John!” exclaimed Nicky. “Why, what use would he be, I should like to know?”

“He was telling me something which I cannot help feeling may have some bearing on this extraordinary event.”

Nicky’s face was alight. “Oh, Ned, do you think—Is it possible that—You know, I told Cousin Elinor this morning I thought very likely that fellow might be one of Boney’s agents, only then you said it was De Castres and J thought it had not been possible!”

“It is certainly unexpected. Yet I believe it would not be quite the first time a scion of one of these émigré families has thrown in his lot with Bonaparte.”

“How very shocking, to be sure!” said Miss Beccles, shaking her head. “It makes one feel so very particularly for their poor parents. But young persons are often very thoughtless, I fear.”

“It cannot be so!” Elinor said. “Why, I have in the past known several such families, and they would be disgusted by the very thought of such a thing!”

“No doubt the elder members of such families would be, ma’am, but there is no doubt that Bonaparte’s career and the regime he has set up have kindled an enthusiasm for his cause in some of the younger men’s breasts. It is no wonder, after all! They have little to hope for in England, and, one supposes, can find little to inspire them with hope in the Bourbon king and the set of men he keeps about him. But these are only surmises! We are running ahead a great deal too fast.”

Nicky, who had been sitting with knit brows, said, “It is very well, Ned, but how should Eustace have had anything to say to French spies? I never thought that he had even common sense!”

“A very unreliable agent, one would have said,” concurred Carlyon. He frowned down at the lid of his snuffbox. “And yet,” he said, “I will own that I have sometimes wondered where Eustace found the money to pay for some of his more expensive pleasures. This might be the answer.”

“A Bonapartist agent!” said Elinor. “Well, I thought I had known the worst of my bridegroom, but it seems I was at fault!”

“I should think,” said Carlyon, “that he was, rather, a go-between.”

“I do not see that that would make him any better!”

“On the contrary, decidedly worse.”

“Oh, what an abominable man you are!” cried Elinor, quite out of patience.

“Hush, my love!” interposed Miss Beccles in gentle reproof. “A lady should never be uncivil, you know. His lordship must be quite shocked to hear you express yourself with such unbecoming violence.”

“I wish I might shock him!” said Elinor bitterly.

“Well, I do not see why you should wish so!” said Nicky, firing up. “And Ned is not an abominable man!”

“A gentleman, Nicky,” said Carlyon, grave as a judge, “should never contradict a lady.”

Miss Beccles nodded her innocent agreement with this dictum. The widow eyed his lordship smolderingly but maintained a prudent silence.

Carlyon, after casting her a somewhat quizzical look, seemed to become wrapped in his own meditations. Nicky, fidgeting restlessly for a little while, at last burst out with, “Do you think we should shut up the secret way? I mean—”

“Oh, yes!” Carlyon replied absently. “I do not think we can hope for him to come by that way a third time.”

“Well, but, Ned, what must we do, then? It would be too flat to leave it as it now stands!”

“Certainly not. But as the matter appears to be of considerable urgency I hardly think that we should be permitted to leave it. Some new form of approach must be expected. Time will show what this may be.”

“Not to me!” said Elinor with resolution. “I will not spend another night in this house, and so I tell you!”

“Oh, Cousin Elinor, you would not be so poor-spirited!” Nicky cried incredulously. “Besides, what should you be afraid of when you will have me with you, and Miss Beccles and Bouncer too?”

“How you can have the effrontery, Nicky, to offer me that horrid dog as consolation is something that gives me a very poor idea of your chivalry!” retorted Elinor. “What is more, I am not so callous that I would ask my dear Becky to remain an hour in this place! It is not at all what she has been accustomed to, I assure you.”

“Very true, my love,” sighed Miss Beccles. “When I was young I used to wish very much that I could meet with an adventure, but none ever came my way, and in the end I did not think of it any more. And now it has come to me, and all through my lord, who so kindly brought me to you!”

“Becky, all my dependence is on you!” almost wailed Elinor. “You cannot wish to remain in this dreadful house!”

“But, my dear Mrs. Cheviot, it seems to me such a comfortable house! And now that my lord is to close up the secret door which, I own, I should not quite like to have open, I cannot see the least cause for you to leave it. And I am sure that if the dear doggie is to stay with us we must be quite safe.”

The intelligent hound, who had sat up at the first mention of his name, flattened his ears and lolled his tongue out gratefully.

“If you knew as much of the dear doggie as I do,” declared Elinor, “you would scarcely stay in the same room with him!” She turned to Carlyon, and added, “Upon being told to guard me, the creature kept me in my chair for the better part of a day!”

“Well, that was quite my fault!” argued Nicky. “He did not perfectly understand what I said to him. And you must own he stayed at his post like a regular bulldog!”

“Yes! And consumed a plate of meat and a large marrowbone, which he buried behind the sofa cushions!”

“Poor old fellow!” said Miss Beccles, in caressing accents.

Bouncer, recognizing a well-wisher, got up and thrust his cold, wet nose under her hand, assuming as he did so the soulful expression of a dog who takes but a benevolent interest in cats, livestock, and stray visitors. Miss Beccles stroked his head and murmured dulcetly to him.

Elinor fixed her eyes upon Carlyon. “My lord, do you expect me to remain here?” she asked straitly.

“Yes, Mrs. Cheviot, I do,” he replied.

“But I may be murdered in my bed!”

“Improbable, I think.”

She swallowed. “But what would you have me do?”

He looked consideringly at her. “I believe you would be well advised to set about the procuring of mourning clothes,” he said. “I appreciate that your time since I left you here has been a little taken up by other matters, but this should have been thought of. I will send my carriage over to be at your orders in case you should like to drive to Chichester. You will find a tolerable silk warehouse there, and may choose something suitable to your condition.”

“But who is to receive any French agents who may call while I am gone?” she retorted.

“Oh, I will do that!” grinned Nicky.

“My dear Nicky, I am about to convey you home. I dare say Mrs. Cheviot has had a surfeit of your company by this time.”

“Oh, Ned, no!” Nicky cried, aghast. “You could not ask me to leave Highnoons now! Why, anything might happen!”

“Nothing is likely to happen.”

“I do not know what makes you think so, my lord,” remarked Elinor. “A man who will twice break into a house and fire upon anyone who discovers him—”

“I am inclined to think that that was a mistake.”

“A mistake, was it!” said Nicky, ruefully feeling his shoulder.

“I dare say you startled him, my dear boy, and he fired before he had time to consider what he was about. He cannot have wished to make such a stir. In fact, his whole manner of conducting this affair appears to me to be the work of a novice. Depend upon it, someone must be behind De Castres, if De Castres it was.”

“Someone more cunning, I dare say?” said Elinor politely.