Good M. Legros was suffering from an unusually severe attack of chronic fussiness. He could not have sat still another hour, and was for starting immediately for my lord's house. Rose Marie had no reason for wishing to put off that interview, the thought of which she abhorred more and more strongly as the time for its occurrence drew nigh.
She was conscious of a desire to get it over, to put finality between the inevitable and her own ever-rebellious hopes. For her parents' sake she wanted to see Lord Stowmaries grateful and yielding; for her own she almost wished that he remained obdurate. She would gladly have purchased her freedom at the price of more bitter humiliation than she had yet endured, yet she had set herself the task of purchasing the content and happiness of those she cared for at the price of her freedom and the most bitter of all humiliation.
These contradictory thoughts and wishes fretted her and rendered her nervous and agitated. But at her father's bidding, she was ready to make a start.
When Legros once more came down into the courtyard, dressed for the momentous visit, and with his daughter on his arm, the Huguenot clerk was nowhere to be seen. He soon reappeared, however, almost breathless from fast running, but seemingly ready to accompany the distinguished foreign visitors withersoever they wished to go.
He had just had time in the interim to consult with Master Daniel Pye as to what had best be done.
"If I do not take that accursed tailor over to my lord Stowmaries, some one else will for sure," he said disconsolately.
"Let me think for a moment," quoth Pye, with an anxious frown on his lowering brow. "I understand that the arrest of my lord is imminent—if only we can put off this meddlesome Frenchman for to-day, I do verily believe that all will be well. For the nonce you had best tell him that my lord Stowmaries is from home, but is expected daily, hourly, to return. Thus we might gain twenty-four hours, for you would tell the same tale again in the afternoon—after that your wits should give you counsel. Am I not paying you that they should be of service to me?"
Thus it was that when the clerk arrived breathless in the yard of the Bell Inn, where Master Legros was impatiently awaiting him, he excused himself for his absence on the grounds that he had—surely with commendable forethought—taken the precaution to make enquiries as to whether my lord of Stowmaries was at home.
"My lord's house is some distance from here," he explained, "and I thought to save you and the fair mistress a fruitless walk through the city."
"Then 'twas mightily officious of you, sirrah?" quoth the irascible tailor, "to meddle with what doth not concern you."