ometimes, with my
two men, half an hour later, for my old lodgings in Covent Garden where,
she said, she had come that evening. It was a very short letter; but it
was very sweet to me. She said only that she could wait no more; that
she knew how ill things must be going with me, and that she must see
with her own eyes that I was not dead altogether. I had striven in my
letters to her to make as light as I could of my troubles; but I suppose
that her woman's wit and her love had pierced my poor disguises. At
least here she was.

* * * * *

She was standing, all ready to greet me, in that old parlour of mine
where I had first met her six years ago; and she was more beautiful now,
a thousand times, in my eyes, than even then. The candles were lighted
all round the walls, and the curtains across the windows; and her maid
was not there. She had already changed her riding dress, and was in her
evening gown with her string of little pearls. As I close my eyes now I
can see her still, as if she stood before me. Her lips were a little
parted, and her flushed cheeks and her bright eyes made all the room
heaven for me. I had not seen her for six months.

"Well, Cousin Roger," she said--no more.

* * * * *

Presently, even before supper came in, she had begun her questioning.

"Cousin Roger," she said--(we two were by the fire, she on a couch and I
in a great chair)--"Cousin Roger, you have treated me shamefully. You
have told me nothing, except that you were in trouble; and that I could
have guessed for myself. I am come to town for three days--no more: my
father for a long time forbade me even to do that. If he were not gone
to Stortford for the horse-fair I should not be here now."

"He does not know you are come to town!" I cried.

She shook her head, like a child, and her eyes twinkled with merriment.

"He thinks I am still minding the sheep," she said. "But that is not the
point. Cousin Roger, I care nothing whatever for His Majesty's affairs,
nor for secret service, nor for anything else of that kind. But I care
very much that you should be in trouble and not tell me what it is."

Now I had not had much time to think what I should say, if she
questioned me, as I knew she would; for it would not be an easy thing to
tell her that her father was at the root of my troubles and had behaved
like a treacherous hound. Yet sooner or later she must be told, unless