d then he'll jolly well have to go back to
London and see after it. You told me it was his business to look after
wars, so of course he must. Now that we've got everything settled I'll
sneak off again and get to bed. If I recollect that word during the
night I'll write it down."

Priscilla, leaving Frank to make his own way back to the house as best
he could, crept through the laurel bushes to the edge of the lawn. Lord
Torrington and Sir Lucius had gone indoors. She could see them through
the open window of the long gallery. She stole carefully across the lawn
and entered the house by way of the dining-room window. She went very
quietly to her bedroom. Before undressing she opened her wardrobe,
lifted out two dresses which lay folded on a shelf and took out the
store of provisions which she had secured at dinner time. She wrapped up
the duck and the fish in paper, nice white paper taken from the bottoms
of the drawers in her dressing table. The herrings' roes on toast,
originally a savoury, she put in the bottom of the soap dish and tied a
piece of paper over the top of it. The caramel pudding rather overflowed
the jam pot. It was impossible to press it down below the level of the
rim. Priscilla sliced off the bulging excess of it with the handle of
her tooth brush and dropped it into her mouth. Then she tied some paper
over the top of the jam pot, and wrote, "pudding" across it with a blue
pencil. The remainder of her spoil--some rolls, two artichokes and a
sweetbread--she wrapped up together.

Then she undressed and got into bed. Half an hour later she woke
suddenly. Without a moment's hesitation she got out of bed and lit a
candle. The blue pencil was still lying on top of the jam pot which
stood on the dressing table. Priscilla took it, and to avoid all
possibility of mistake in the morning, wrote word "inviolable" on every
one of her parcels.

CHAPTER XVII

It was ten o'clock in the forenoon. Peter Walsh, having breakfasted,
strolled down the street towards the quay. When he reached it he
surveyed the boats which lay there with a long, deliberate stare. The
_Blue Wanderer_ was at her moorings. The _Tortoise_, with a new iron on
her rudder, had gone out at seven o'clock. There were three boats from
the islands and one large hooker lying at the quay. Peter Walsh
made quite sure that there was nothing which called for comment or
investigation in the appearance of any of these. Then he lit his pipe
and to