peak their minds. They have never
lacked for names to call me, and I have been dubbed a traitor before now,
my dear lady."

He stepped hastily to the bed, and laid his hand on me with affection.

"Charles," I said, "this is all of a piece with your old recklessness.
You were ever one to take any risk, but I will not hear of such a venture
as this. Do you think I will allow the hope of all England to be staked
for a pirate? And would you break our commander of her rank? All that
Dorothy need do at Portsmouth is to curtsey to the first skipper she
meets, and I'll warrant he will carry us all to the antipodes."

"Egad, but that is more practical than it sounds," he replied, with a
glance of admiration at my lady, as she stood so tall before us. "She
has a cool head, Richard Carvel, and a long head, and--and I'm thinking
you are to come out of this the best of all of us. You cannot get far
off your course, my lad, with her at the helm."

It was there his voice belied the jest in his words, and he left us with
precipitation.

They lifted me out of my sheets (I was appalled to discover my weakness),
and bundled me with tender care in a dozen shawls and blankets. My feet
were thrust into two pairs of heavy woollen stockings, and Dorothy bound
her own silk kerchief at my throat, whispering anxious questions the
while. And when her mother and mammy went from the room, her arms flew
around my neck in a passion of solicitude. Then she ran away to dress
for the journey, and in a surprising short time was back again, with her
muff and her heavy cloak, and bending over me to see if I gave any signs
of failure.

Fifty and five minutes had been registered by the French clock, when the
rattle of wheels and the clatter of hoofs sounded below, and Charles Fox
panted up the stairs, muffled in a huge wrap-rascal. 'Twas he and Aunt
Lucy carried me down to the street, Dorothy walking at my side, and
propped me up in the padded corner of one of the two vehicles in waiting.
This was an ample travelling-carriage with a lamp hanging from its top,
by the light of which my lady tucked me in from head to foot, and then
took her place next me. Aunt Lucy filled most of the seat opposite. The
baggage was hoisted up behind, and Charles was about to slam the door,
when a hackney-chaise turned the corner at a gallop and pulled up in the
narrow street abreast, and the figure of my Lord Comyn suddenly leaped
within the compass of the lanthorn's rays.