ittington had been riding to Spain.

The Chevalier laughed harshly.

"Sir, I suspect honour which needs such barriers to protect it. You are
here, in this house, at this hour, with a sentinel to forbid intrusion
at the garden door. Explain me this honourably."

"I had the honour to escort a visitor to her Highness, and I wait until
the visit is at an end."

"What? Can you not better that excuse?" said the Chevalier. "A visitor!
We will make acquaintance, Mr. Wogan, with your visitor, unless you have
another sentinel to bar my way;" and he put his foot upon the step of
the stairs.

"I beg your Majesty to pause," said Wogan, firmly. "Your thoughts wrong
me, and not only me."

"Prove me that!"

"I say boldly, 'Here is a servant who loves his Queen!' What then?"

"This! That you should say, 'Here is a man who loves a woman,--loves her
so well he gives his friends the slip, and with the woman comes alone to
Peri.'"

"Ah. To Peri! So I thought," began Wogan, and the Chevalier whispered,--

"Silence! You raise your voice too high. You no doubt are anxious in
your great respect that there should be some intimation of my coming.
But I dispense with ceremony. I will meet this fine visitor of yours at
once;" and he ran lightly up the stairs.

Then Wogan did a bold thing. He followed, he sprang past the King, he
turned at the stair-top and barred the way.

"Sir, I beg you to listen to me," he said quietly.

"Beg!" said the Chevalier, leaning back against the wall with his dark
eyes blazing from a white face; "you insist."

"Your Majesty will yet thank me for my insistence." He drew a
pocket-book out of his coat. "At Peri in Italy we were attacked by five
soldiers sent over the border by the Governor of Trent. Who guided those
five soldiers? Your Majesty's confidant and friend, who is now, I thank
God, waiting in the garden. Here is the written confession of the leader
of the five. I pray your Majesty to read it."

Wogan held out the paper. The Chevalier hesitated and took it. Then he
read it once and glanced at it again. He passed his hand over his
forehead.

"Whom shall I trust?" said he, in a voice of weariness.

"What honest errand was taking Whittington to Peri?" asked Wogan, and
again the Chevalier read a piece here and there of the confession. Wogan
pressed his advantage. "Whittington is not the only one of Walpole's men
who has hoodwinked us the while he filled his pockets. There are others,
one, at all