"Dear Pancras!" she sighed, "an you would talk with Charles, you shall, so come your ways and be silent—Pancras dear!"
So she brought him into the house and, finger on lip, led him up back stairways and along seldom used passages to a door small but remarkably strong; here she paused to reach a key from a dark corner, a key of massive proportions at sight of which the Viscount whistled.
"You see, Pan," she explained, fitting it to the lock, "Charles is quite determined to get away at once for my sake, but I'm quite determined he shall stay for his own sake, until I judge him sufficiently recovered, and—hark to him, Pan, hark to my naughty child!" She laughed as an impatient fist thumped the stout door from within and a muffled voice reached them. "Be silent, sir!" she commanded. Followed a sulky muttering, the door swung open and my lord of Medhurst appeared, petulant and eager:
"What Pan!" he cried. "What Tom—Tommy lad! Y'see how she treats me!"
"Hush!" exclaimed my lady, closing the door.
"Gad, Charles!" exclaimed the Viscount as they embraced, "you're thin and pale, is't your wound?"
"Nay—nay, I vow I'm well enough, Tom——"
"But I protest art worn to a shadow——"
"A shadow—aha!" His lordship laughed gaily. "Say a shade, Tom, a ghost and you're in the right with a vengeance. But tell me the latest town news, Tommy, who's in and who's out? Stands London where it did——"
"Nay first, Charles, I'm here to smuggle you away to my Sussex place there to keep you hid until I can arrange for you to cross into France. 'Twill be the simplest matter i' the world, Charles, I'll have a couple of fast horses in the lane at midnight, we shall reach my place by dawn or thereabouts. How say you?"