"'Tis Owen Pengarvin. He was here last night when you came."
Now I remembered the little man in black whom I had seen coming down the stair whilst I knocked at the door. But this left me in a greater maze than ever.
"If he knows I am here, why does he let them search elsewhere?"
At this she looked away from me, and I made sure I saw the sweet chin quiver when she spoke.
"He has reasons of his own; reasons of—of—" but instead of telling me what they were she broke off to say: "But now you know why all the doors of this house are under guard."
"Truly," said I; and therewith I fell to pacing up and down the narrow clear-way in the garret, striving to see how I might come off with nothing worse than the loss of my burdensome life.
'Twas easy to guess how this shaveling lawyer had discomfited me. Forewarned is forearmed in any soldier camp; and through his blabbing, the plan by which I had hoped to lull resentment and forestall suspicion was nipped in the bud. I saw the far-reaching consequences, and was made to know how a trapped rat will turn and fight in sheer desperation whilst the terrier is shaking him to death.
When that leaven began to work in me I was fit for the daringest thing that offered; so I paused to ask if my Lord Cornwallis were yet in the house.
"He is writing letters in his bed-room," was her answer.
"If you will show me the way thither I shall be your poor debtor by that much more."