threw back his head and laughed
long and loud. If only he had used his wits, he would have denounced
the fellow where he stood.

And in this realization of Ashley's guilt, and in the consciousness
that Barbara must love him at least a little if she had been jealous
of Sylvia, Lord Farquhart slept profoundly.

XVI.

All this merely brings the narrative back to the announcement made by
Marmaduke to Lindley and Johan when they entered the courtyard of The
Jolly Grig after the fight with the highwaymen.

As may be supposed, it was several nights before Lindley was
sufficiently recovered from his wound to again keep tryst with Johan,
the player's boy. When at last he could ride out to the edge of the
Ogilvie woods, he found the lad sitting on the ground under an oak,
apparently waiting for whatever might happen. He did not speak at all
until he was accosted by Lindley, and then he merely recited in a
listless manner that Mistress Judith was gone to London with her
father.

The boy's manner was so changed, his tone was so forlorn, that
Lindley's sympathy was awakened. He wondered if the lad really loved
Judith so devotedly.

"And that has left you so disconsolate?" he asked.

"Ay, my master!" Indeed the youth's tone was disconsolate, even as a
true lover's might have been.

"And when went Mistress Judith to London?" asked Lindley. "This
afternoon? This morning?"

"But no. She went some four days ago, all in a hurry, as it seemed,"
Johan answered.

"Four days ago!" echoed Lindley. "But why did you not send me word?"
He was thinking of the days that had been wasted with his lady near
him, all unknown to him, in London.

"She--I mean--I thought you would be here each night," stammered the
boy, contritely, and yet his tone was listless. "I've but kept the
tryst with you."

Lindley looked at the boy curiously. Preoccupied as he was with his
own thoughts, he still recognized the change in his companion.

"What's the matter, Johan?" he asked. "You were not hurt the other
night, were you? Are you still brooding on the fact that you killed
your man? Are you ill? Or do you fear that I've forgot my debt? What
ails you? Can't you tell me?" The questions hurried on, one after
another. "Or is it Mistress Judith's absence, alone, that hurts you
thus? Is she to be long in London?"

"N--no. That is, I do not know," the boy made answer to the last
question. "We, my master and I and all his company, go ourselves early
to