"I was to come"--said Lady Catharine. "I was to speak to you--"

"Aye," replied the turnkey. "You were to come, and you were to speak.
And now, what were you to say to me? Was there no given word?"

"There was such a word," she said. "You will understand. It is in the
matter of Mr. Law."

"True," said the turnkey. "But I must have the countersign. There are
heads to lose in this, yours and mine, if there be mistake."

Lady Catharine raised her head proudly. "It was for Faith," said she,
"for Love, and for Hope! These were the words."

Saying which, as though she had called to her aid the last atom of her
strength, she staggered back and half fell against the wall near the
inner gate. The rude jailer sprang forward to steady her.

"Yes, yes," he whispered, eagerly. "'Tis all proper. Those be the
words. Pray you, have courage, lady."

There came into the corridor a murmur of voices, and there was audible
also the sound of a man's footfalls approaching along the flags.
Catharine Knollys looked through the bars of the gate which the turnkey
was already beginning to throw open for her. She looked, and there
appeared upon her vision, a sight which caused her heart to stop, which
confounded all her reason. From a side door there advanced John Law,
magnificently clad, walking now as though he trod the floor of some
great hall or banquet room.

The woman waiting without the gate reached out her arms. She would have
cried aloud. Then she fell back against the wall, whereat had she not
grasped she must have sunk down to the floor.

Upon the arm of John Law, and looking up to him as she walked, there
hung the clinging figure of a woman, half-hidden by the flickering
shadows of the torches. A deep cloak fell back from her shoulders. It
might have been the light fabric of the aborigine. Upon the foot of Mary
Connynge, twinkling in and out as she walked, showed the crudely
garnished little shoe of the Indian princess over seas, dainty, bizarre,
singular, covering the smallest foot in all London town.

"By all the saints!" Law was saying, "you might be the very maker of
this little slipper yourself. I have won the forty crowns, I swear!
Perforce, I'll leave them to you in my will."

The shock of the light speech made even Mary Connynge wince. For the
moment she averted her eyes from the handsome face above her. She
looked, and saw what gave her greater shock. Law, too, stared, as her
own startled gaze grew fixed. He adv