ine be right that
Countess the Jewess took the boy. Is that it?"

"That is it," she replied, flushing at the sound of her old name. "You
are Stephen the Watchdog, if I mistake not? Yes, I am Countess--or
rather, I was Countess, till I was baptised into the Christian faith.
So Ermine is yet alive? I should like to see her. I would fain have
her to come forward as my witness, when I deliver the boy unhurt to his
father at the last day."

"But how on earth did you do it?" broke out Stephen in amazement. "Why,
you could scarcely have heard at Reading of what had happened,--I should
have thought you could not possibly have heard, until long after all was
over."

"I was not at Reading," she said in a constrained tone. "I was living
in Dorchester. And I heard of the arrest from Regina."

"Do, for pity's sake, tell me all about it!"

"I will tell you every thing: but let me tell Ermine with you. And,--
Stephen--you will not try to take him from me? He is all I have."

"No, Countess," said Stephen gravely. "You have a right to the life
that you have saved. Will you come with me now? But perhaps you cannot
leave together? Will the house be rifled when you return?"

"Not at all," calmly replied Countess. "We will both go with you."

She rose, disappeared for a moment, and came back clad in a fur-lined
cloak and hood. Turning the key in the press which held the stock, she
stooped down and attached the key to the dog's collar.

"On guard, Olaf! Keep it!" was all she said to the dog. "Now, Stephen,
we are ready to go with you."

Olaf got up somewhat sleepily, shook himself, and then lay down close to
the screen, his head between his paws, so that he could command a view
of both divisions of the chamber. He evidently realised his
responsibility.

Stephen had no cause to complain that Countess wasted any time. She
walked even faster than he had done, only pausing to let him take the
lead at the street corner. But when he had once told her that his home
was in Ivy Lane, she paused no more, but pressed on steadily and quickly
until they reached the little street. Stephen opened his door, and she
went straight in to where Ermine stood.

"Ermine!" she said, with a pleading cadence in her voice, "I have
brought back the child unhurt."

"Countess!" was Ermine's cry.

She took Ermine's hands in hers.

"I may touch you now," she said. "You will not shrink from me, for I am
a Christian. But I have kept