The afternoon sunlight shone through the avenue and glistened on the laburnum flowers. But there is another sort of yellow flower that blooms from the mouth of a pistol barrel with which Mr. Wogan was at that moment more concerned, and he unstrapped the holsters and looked to the priming to see whether the buds were ready to burst. Then he drove his heels into his horse's flanks and so rode down between the chestnut trees. 'Your ladyship, we need wait no longer,' said Montague to Lady Oxford. 'Your footman will not come back, and I have the honour to return you your packet of letters.'
With that he drew the letters from his pocket, sealed up in a parcel with Mr. Kelly's ring. Lady Oxford clutched them tight to her bosom, and lay back in the carriage, her eyes closed. The coachman drove back to London.
They had gone almost half the way before Lady Oxford recovered sufficiently from her joy to have a thought for anything but the letters. Then she looked at Montague, and her eyes widened.
'The footman!' she said. 'Ah! I have saved Mr. Kelly after all. I have saved him!'
The Colonel might have pointed out that whatever saving had been done, Lady Oxford had taken but an involuntary hand in it. But he merely shrugged his shoulders; he imagined her anxiety on Mr. Kelly's account to be all counterfeit, although, may be, she was sincere.
'Mr. Kelly,' he said, 'is most likely in the Tower. Your footman was Mr. Nicholas Wogan.'
Lady Oxford was silent for some little time. Then in a low, broken voice she said:
'There was no need you should have so distrusted me.'
Montague glanced at her curiously. Her face had a new look to him. It was thoughtful, but with a certain simplicity in the thoughtfulness; compunction saddened it, and it seemed there was no artifice in the compunction.
'Madam,' he answered gently, 'if I had told you, and the manner of Mr. Wogan's escape became known, you might fall under the imputation of favouring Mr. Wogan's cause.'