"But how? I have no other clothes but those I wear."
"Hoot! a small changement is easy, and sometimes, so to speak as it were, effectual. Off with that hat and wig." And as he spoke he took off each of his.
"You will lose by the exchange, Jemmy," said Archibald. "Mine is but a rusty bob and a poor hat; both yours are very good."
"No matter. To-morrow at the lodgment we will change again."
Therefore, with his appearance considerably altered, Archibald Sholto prepared now to set out for Wandsworth. But ere he did so he said one word to honest James McGlowrie.
"Jemmy," he remarked, "make no mistake about Ka--Lady Fordingbridge and this meeting with Bertie Elphinston to which she has gone. She is as good and pure a woman as ever lived and suffered. I have known her from a child, gave her her first communion; there is no speck of ill in her."
"Lived and suffered, eh?" repeated the other.
"Ay, lived and suffered! The man she has gone to meet was to have been her husband; they loved each other with all their hearts and souls; and by foul treachery she was stolen from him by that most unparalleled scoundrel, Fordingbridge. Remember that, Jemmy, when you see her to-night; remember she is as pure a woman as your mother was, and respect her for all that she has endured."
"Have no fear," said Jemmy, manfully, "have no fear. Although ye are a Papist, Archie, and a priest at that, I'll e'en take your word for it."
So, with a light laugh from the Jesuit at the rigid and plain-spoken Presbyterianism of his old schoolfellow and whilom fag, they parted with a grasp of the hand, each to what he had to do. That James McGlowrie carried out his portion of the undertaking has been already told, as well as how, after the information he gave Lady Fordingbridge, she decided to accept Lady Belrose's offer of her house as a refuge, if only temporarily; and how he afterwards became a messenger from her to Bertie Elphinston.