'He has not opened it?' she asked.
'He has not seen it,' replied Wogan, who began to fear from her ladyship's discomposure that the letter held news of an urgent importance. She took the letter from his hands, and broke the seal.
'This was my message,' she said. There was no scrap of writing in the letter, but a feather from a bird's wing: it meant "Fly!"
'The feather is white,' said Wogan. He could not have mounted it.'
'He loses his life.'
'Perhaps, but he keeps his honour. There is something that he must do in London if by any means he can. He must burn the papers at his lodgings and the best hope lies in audacity.'
Mr. Wogan tore up the sheet on which her ladyship had written Mr. Johnson's name into fragments too minute for anyone to piece them together again.
'This proof of your good will,' said he, 'shall not rise in judgment against you.'
'But you?' said Lady Mary. 'Why do you stay?'
Wogan laughed.