Mr. Wogan was indeed already relishing in anticipation the half-hour that was to come, and hurried after the Parson, who was by this time close to the door with Rose upon his arm and Dr. Townley at his heels.
'Good night, Mr. Johnson,' said her ladyship in a lazy voice. 'Take care of yourself, for they tell me the streets are not too safe.'
Kelly dropped Rose Townley's arm and turned back towards Lady Oxford.
'But surely,' said he with some anxiety, 'tonight the streets are safe. Your ladyship assured me of their safety to-night.'
Lady Oxford made no reply for a few seconds, she stood watching Kelly with an indolent smile. A word of Lady Mary's came back to Wogan's mind--a word spoken two years since in Paris, 'She will play cat to any man's mouse.'
'To-night?' said Lady Oxford, lifting her eyebrows, and she glanced towards the clock. It was five minutes to one. Kelly stared at the clock, his mouth open and his eyes fixed. Then he drew his hand across his forehead, and, walking slowly to the mantelpiece, leaned his hands on it in a broken attitude and so stared at the clock again. Lady Oxford had struck her last blow, and the last was the heaviest. Kelly had the night free, but the night was gone--and the streets were not safe. Nothing could be saved now--not even the King's papers. Then Wogan saw a change come over his face. The despair died out of it and left it blank as a shuttered window. But very slowly the shutter opened. He was thinking; the thought became a hope, the hope a resolve. First his knees straightened, then the rounded shoulders rose stiff and strong. In his turn Kelly struck.
'Your ladyship,' he said, 'was kind enough some time ago to entrust me with your own brocades. Those brocades are in the strong box in my lodgings.'
Wogan understood. Brocades was the name for letters in the jargon of the Plot. Lady Oxford's love-letters were in that box which he had handled that very afternoon. If Kelly was seized in the street his rooms would be searched, the King's papers found, and, with the King's papers, Lady Oxford's love-letters. Lady Oxford understood too. Her ingenious stratagems of the evening to discredit the ballad and save her fair fame would be of little avail if the world once got wind of those pretty outpourings of Smilinda's heart. Her face grew very white. She dropped her fan and stooped to recover it. It was noticeable, though unnoticed, that no one of those who were still present stepped forward to pick up the fan. Curiosity held them in chains, not for the first time that evening. It was as though they stood in a room and knew that behind locked doors two people were engaged in a duel. Now and then a clink of steel would assure them that a thrust was made; but how the duel went they could not tell.
When Lady Oxford rose her colour had returned.
'My brocades?' she said. 'Indeed, I had purely forgotten them. You have had them repaired in Paris?'