Having seen the little fellow off, Barbara set the servants to work on a business that would keep them remote from the library, and then visited her guest. She first knocked three times on the chimney—a sign that had been agreed on. After a minute had passed he replied, and, having made certain that no one could enter or see into the library, Barbara removed the picture and waited.
The young man immediately sprang into the room.
"Good morrow, sir," said Barbara simply, with a curtsey.
"Good morrow, fair hostess and preserving angel," said the young man, with a bow.
"We must come to business at once," said Barbara, and forthwith she told him of her message to her brother. "Philip is very young," she added, "but true as steel, and his head is older than his years."
"Good," said the stranger, and he unfolded his plans. That night he must embark for France. He was expected by the master of the Antelope, a schooner lying all ready to weigh anchor at Portallan, the harbour twelve miles distant. She would sail by the night tide, with or without him. It was understood that, if he were not there, evil had befallen him.
"Everything depends," he explained, "on my departure to-night. The cause hangs upon it. A blight on my evil luck!" he cried. "Were Colonel Myddelton at home, I should not be fleeing from my own country empty-handed. I shall be writing to him most of this day, but a spoken word is worth a volume of pen stuff."
It was arranged at length that as soon as the dusk came three of the boys, with the stranger wearing the clothes of the fourth, should ride out, ostensibly on the return to the schoolhouse.
Thus, no suspicion would be aroused, and, once in the road, it would be simple to turn the horses' heads towards the sea and gain the harbour.
That settled, Barbara gave breakfast to her guest, and he returned to his hidingplace for the rest of the weary day with a store of candles and an armful of books and paper.