nd of his efforts and could only wait. At all events,
the women were talking, that was something; if he could only hear them
weeping! The sound of tears would have been very comforting to Wogan at
that moment, but he only heard the low voices talking, talking. He
assured himself over and over again that this meeting could not fail of
its due result. That Maria Vittoria had exacted some promise which held
his King in Spain he was now aware. She would say what that promise was,
the condition of their parting. She had come prepared to say it--and the
thread of Wogan's reasonings was abruptly cut. It seemed to him that he
heard something more than the night breeze through the trees,--a sound
of feet upon the gravel path, a whispering of voices.

The windows were closed, but not shuttered. Wogan pressed his eyes to
the pane and looked out. The night was dark, and the sky overclouded.
But he had been sitting for some minutes in the darkness, and his eyes
were able to prove that his ears had not deceived him. For he saw the
dim figures of two men standing on the lawn before the window. They
appeared to be looking at the lighted windows on the upper floor, then
one of them waved to his companion to stand still, and himself walked
towards the door. Wogan noticed that he made no attempt at secrecy; he
walked with a firm tread, careless whether he set his foot on gravel or
on grass. As this man approached the door, Wogan slipped into the hall
and opened it. But he blocked the doorway, wondering whether these men
had climbed the wall or whether O'Toole had deserted his post.

O'Toole had not deserted his post, but he had none the less admitted
these two men. For Wogan and Maria Vittoria had barely been ten minutes
within the house when O'Toole heard the sound of horses' hoofs in the
entrance of the alley. They stopped just within the entrance. O'Toole
distinguished three horses, he saw the three riders dismount; and while
one of the three held the horses, the other two walked on foot towards
the postern-door.

O'Toole eased his sword in its scabbard.

"The little fellows thought to catch Charles Wogan napping," he said to
himself with a smile, and he let them come quite close to him. He was
standing motionless in the embrasure of the door, nor did he move when
the two men stopped and whispered together, nor when they advanced
again, one behind the other. But he remarked that they held their cloaks
to their faces. At last they ca