Rightly has the Latin poet sung of the dura ilia of the Fates, who either resistless rout all human resolutions, or, where the mind has been hardened to meet the attack, turn the poor wretch's flank, and lo! while he squares his shield, and shortens his spear to meet the occasion, habet--he has it under the fifth rib.

So it was with me. While I dreamed of resistance, and would harden my heart and set fast my feet, fate cross-buttocked me; and I fell, not knowing. The Countess's coach bore me away, unresisting; and Smith, whom I hated as I never hated even Ferguson, gave me the word. From my plain clothes, to the long curled peruke, the cravat, ruffles, and fine suit in which I had once before paraded myself, was but a step; I took it perforce, and being conducted, when I was ready, into the Countess's chamber, to wait her pleasure, could have fancied the last six months a dream--could have fancied the conspirators still at work, Captain Barclay still pacing the Piazza, my lord still a stranger to me, the library a vision; in a word, I could have fancied all those events, which had filled half a year, to be no more than creatures of the imagination, so unchanged was the great silent room, where my lady, while I waited, played piquet with Monterey, amid the gorgeousness of her rose-and-silver suite.

The monkey gibbered as of old, and the parrot vied with the broidered parrots on the wall; and now, as then, the air was heavy with scent and musk, while the light, cunningly arranged, fell on the part where the Countess sat, now grumbling and now swearing, or now, while the cards were dealing, thumping the floor impatiently with her stick. She had so perfectly the grand air of a past generation, that when her eye turned in my direction I trembled, and thought no more of resistance; yet when she resumed the game, she gradually--and more and more completely, as I watched--sank into a querulous, feeble, fierce old woman, whose passion, where it did not terrify, moved to derision, and whose fads and fancies, as patent as the day, placed her at the mercy of all who cared to flatter or cozen her.

Madame was about it now; letting her win, and again gaining a slight advantage; mingling hints at old vanities and conquests (whereat my lady grew garrulous) with new scandals, coarse and spiteful; whining a little when my lady, in a fury caused by a bad hand, struck her across the face with a fan to teach her to be awkward, but cheering up at once when the Countess's mood changed with the cards. In a word, as she had betrayed me young, she cozened my lady old; but seeing her features grown hard with time, and her eyes grown lifeless, and the devil grinning more plainly from behind the mask, that once had been so fair, it was a wonder to me that even the Countess was deceived.

Presently my lady threw down her cards in a rage, and calling her opponent a cheating slut, proceeded to turn her anger on me.

"What is the gaby doing, standing there like a gawk?" she shrieked. "Why is he not about his business?"

Monterey whispered her that I had not had my instructions.

"Then give them, and let him go!" she cried. "Where is the ring? Here, you daw in peacock's feathers--like my son, indeed? About as like as that squinting vixen Villiers is to a beauty! Take that, and ride with Matthew Smith, and give it to the gentleman you will meet at the inn at Ashford, and say--Monterey, tell him what to say."

"Say, 'Colonel Talbot sends this ring, and his service.' And if the gentleman asks 'Whither?' or this, or that, to whatever he asks, answer thus: 'I am not here. Sir John, to answer questions. Favour me by conveying that ring and my services whither you are going. I do not talk, but when the time comes I shall act.'"

"C'est tout!" said the Countess, nodding approval. "If you are not man enough to repeat that, whip you for a noodle! Say it, man."

But when I went to say it, first I could not remember it, and broke down; and then when, my lady storming at me for a fool and an imbecile, I had got the sentences into my head, I but whimpered them, bringing no heart to the task. My lady, when she saw that, flew out at me afresh, and threw first the vapours bottle and then her cane at me, which, breaking a piece of china, put her fairly beside herself. "Come here!" she shrieked, swaying to and fro in her chair. "Do you hear, you puling, psalm-singing canter? Come here, I say!" And when, trembling and scared, I had approached, she leant forward, and seizing hold of my ear, as Ferguson had once seized it, she twisted it with such unexpected strength and spite that I roared with pain, and fairly fell on my knees beside her.

"There is for you, gros cochon!" she cried. "So you can speak up when you like! Now go to the end of the room, my man, and play your part again, and play it better! Or, by ----, I will have up those who shall lash your back to the bone. Hoity toity! These are fine times, when scum like you, my lad, put on airs!"

This was not the discipline, nor were these the threats, to give an actor courage; but in sheer desperation, I spoke up, and, this time, had the good fortune to please her; and, Monterey mocking me, and pushing me this way and that, I went through my part a dozen times. At length the Countess expressed herself satisfied, and with a grim nod, and an "Odds my life, he is not so unlike, after all!" gave me leave to go. But when I was half way to the door, she called me back, and after I had timidly obeyed, she sat awhile, glowering at me in silence. At last, "No," she said irritably, "it is too late!" and she struck on the floor with her stick. "It is too late to turn back! The cross devil did nothing but thwart me to-day, and what he will not do bon grÉ, he shall do perforce. He has brought it on himself, and he must abide his destin! Yet--Monterey!"

The woman was at her side in a moment. "Yes, madam!"

"I suppose that there is no danger of a contretemps," she said, stirring restlessly in her chair. "Sir John will get away? They will not take him, and find the ring on him--and learn whose it is?"

On that, if I had been quick, and had had both wits and courage at command, I should have thrown myself at her feet; and so I might have opened her eyes. But I wavered, and before I had found heart to do it, the waiting-woman, smooth and watchful, was in the breach.

"Ashford, my lady, is only three hours' riding from Dymchurch in the Marsh," she said, "where the boat waits for him to-morrow night. Sir John is well mounted, and it will be odd, if, after baffling pursuit for months, he should be taken in that time."

"Yes, yes!" my lady said querulously. "Let him go! Let him go! Though you are a fool to boot. A man is taken or not taken in less than three hours. Even now, if that contrary devil of a son of mine had not argued with me, and argued with me to-day--but, let him go! Let him go!"

The woman lost no time in taking her at her word, and hurrying me out; not by the main entrance through which I had come in, but by the little side door, leading to the dingy closet at the head of the private staircase. In the closet a bright, unshaded lamp burned on the dusty table, and beside it stood Matthew Smith, wearing a cloak, riding-boots, and a great flapped hat. He looked eagerly at the woman, his eyes shining in the glare of the lamp; but he did not speak until she had closed the door behind her. Then, "Is it right?" he whispered.

She nodded.

"You have got the ring?"

She gave it to him with a smile of triumph.

He looked at it, and with a grim face slipped it into his pocket. "Good," he said, "and now, my friend, the sooner we are away, the better."

But my gorge rose. On the table beside him, in the full glare of the lamp, lay a cloak and holsters, a mask, sword, and riding-whip. I knew what these objects meant, and for whom they were prepared; and at the prospect of the plunge into the dark night, of the journey, and the perils of the unknown road, I cried out that I would not go! I would not go! And I tried to force my way back into the Countess's room--with what intention heaven knows.

But Smith whipped between me and the door. "You fool!" he said, pushing me back. "Are you mad? Or don't you know me yet?" "I know you too well!" I cried, beside myself with rage, and with apprehensions of the plunge on the brink of which I stood. "You have cursed me from the first day I saw you at Ware! You have been the curse of my life! You, and that Jezebel!"

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SHE CAME A STEP NEARER TO ME, AND PEERED AT ME

"Are you mad?" he said again; and threatened me with his hand.

But she came a step nearer to me, and peered at me; and after one look took the lamp from the table and held it to my face. "At Ware?" she said. "At Ware?" And then, putting the lamp back on the table, she fell to laughing. "He is right!" she said. "I know him now. But you told me that his name was Taylor."

"Taylor?" he said wrathfully. "So it is; and Price, and half a dozen other names, for all I know. What does it matter what his name is?"

"Oh, it matters very much," she said, affecting to ogle me in an exaggerated fashion. "He is an old flame of mine. His face always brought something to my mind--but I thought that it was his likeness to the Duke."

He cursed her old flames, and the Duke. And then, "What does it mean?" he said. "Who is he?"

"He is the lad we left at Ware--in the old woman's room," she answered, her voice sinking, and growing almost soft. "Lord! it seems so long ago, it might have happened in another life! You remember him. Matt? You saw him with me at The Rose one night? The first night I saw you?"

He looked at me, long and strangely. "And what does it mean?" he said at last, scowling between wonder and suspicion.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Sais pas!" she answered. "Ask him!"

"You ruined me once!" I cried. "And he saved me! And now you would have me ruin him. You are devils, you are! Devils! But I defy you!"

He did not answer, but continued to stare at me; as if he discerned or suspected that there was more in this than appeared on the surface. At length the woman laughed, and he turned to her, rage in his face. "I see nothing to laugh at," he said.

"But I do!" she answered pertly. "You three all mixed up! It would make a cat laugh my lad."

He cursed her. "Have done with that!" he said fiercely. "And say, what is to be done?"

"Done?" she answered briskly, and in a tone of genuine surprise. "Why, that which was to be done. What difference does this make?"

But he looked at her, pondering darkly, as if it did make a difference. I suppose that somewhere, deep down in his nature, there lurked a grain of superstition, which found in this singular coincidence, this sudden stringing together of persons long parted, an evil omen. Or it may be that he had still some scrap of conscience left, that, seared and deadened as it was, stirred and started at this strange upheaval of an old crime. At any rate, "I don't know," he growled at last. "I don't like it, and that is flat. There is some practice in this."

"There is a fool in it," she answered naÏvely. "And there are like to be two!"

I thought to back him up, and I braced myself against the wall, to which I had retired. "I won't go!" I said doggedly. "I will call for help in the streets, first!"

"You will do as you are told," she answered coolly. "And you," she continued to Smith in a voice of stinging scorn, "are you going to give it up now, when all is safe? Will you stand to my lord as this poor silly fellow stands to you? Have you waited for years for your revenge--to move aside now? Why, my G--d! the Duke is worth ten of you. He is a man, at any rate. He is----"

"Peace, girl," he cried, with I know not what of menace in his tone.

"Then, will you go?"

"Yes, I will go!" he answered between his teeth. "But by heaven, you slut, if ill comes of it, I will wring your neck! I will, so help me heaven! You shall deceive no other man! If there is practice of yours in this, if this tool is here by your connivance----"

"He is not!" she answered. "Be satisfied."

Apparently he was satisfied, for he drew a deep breath, and stood silent. She turned to me. "Get ready," she said sharply.

"No," I muttered, summoning all my resolution. "I shall not go. I--I have not----"

Smith turned to me, and the refusal died on my lips. The struggle with the woman had roused the man's passions; and I read in his eyes such a glare of ferocity as chilled my blood and unstrung my knees. Nor was that all; for when I went, trembling, to take the cloak, "One moment," he said grimly, "not so fast, my friend. Let us understand one another before we start. Mr. Price or Mr. Taylor or whatever your name is, take note, do you hear me, of three things? One, that the business we are on is life or death. Do you grasp that?"

I muttered a shuddering assent.

"Secondly," he continued, with the same gruesome civility, "my hand will never be more than six inches from the butt of a pistol, until I see this home again. Do you grasp that?"

I nodded.

"Thirdly, at the least sign of treachery or disobedience on your part, I blow out your brains first, and my own afterwards, if that be necessary. Do you grasp that?"

I nodded.

"That is especially well," he said. "Because the last item is important to you. On the other hand, Mr. Price, play honest John with me, and in forty-eight hours you shall be back in your master's house, free and safe; and I shall trouble you no more. Do you understand that?"

I said I did; my teeth chattering, and my eyes seeking to evade his.

"Then, now, yon may get into those things," he said. "And do you ride when I bid you, and halt when I bid you, and speak when I say speak, and be silent when I say be silent--do those four things, I say, and you will die in your bed. They are all I ask."

I stooped, shaking all over, to take up the boots. "Heart up, pretty!" cried the woman, with an odd laugh that broke off short with a sort of quaver. "It is clear that you are not born to be hanged. And for the rest----"

"Peace, peace, wench," said Smith impatiently. "And dress him."