As the full significance of this fact dawned upon me, I stole forward until I reached the step. And I was not mistaken. Inadvertently in re-entering the room, my lady had loosened the curtains, and they had fallen to behind her.
From within came the sound of voices, but the curtains were so thick that the words were indistinct and the light shone through but faintly.
Cautiously I raised my hand and slightly parted the heavy drapery before me, and the interior of the room lay open to my gaze.
Upon the hearth, beside the carved stone chimney-piece, stood my lady, the light of the candles shimmering in the folds of her soft satin gown. Seated at a table near, upon which lay the remains of a meal, were three men, whom I had never before seen. At the head was a sallow, hawk-faced man, with a certain stiffness of carriage that sufficiently proclaimed a military career. He wore a full bottomed periwig and was dressed in a suit of sober black. The one nearest to me was more conspicuous. He was an enormously stout man, in a coat of plum-coloured velvet. He had laid aside his wig upon the table before him, and the light shone upon his round bullet head, crowned with a few scanty locks of hair, which he mopped ever and again with a coloured kerchief. Facing me was a young man of some twenty years of age, dressed in a richly laced suit of grey and silver.
My lady was speaking, but in a voice so changed I could scarcely recognise it as hers; for so far I had but heard it hard and bitter with scorn; now it was soft and raised in pleading.
“Oh,” she was saying, “how can you longer hesitate, even for a moment? Or why delay? Surely you, Colonel Wharton, know, depleted of troops as the country is at present, now is the very time for all true friends of the Stuart cause to proclaim themselves openly in arms!”
“Admitting the truth of all that you have said, madam,” the man in black answered, “and the fact of the money and arms being to hand at the time you mention, still I cannot but look upon the enterprise as a most desperate one.”
“Desperate?” the stout man cried. “’Tis suicide—sheer suicide! Would you have me believe that the country is any the more anxious to receive James back than it was, two years ago, to be quit of him?”
“I am afraid that I do not understand you, sir!” my lady answered. “You have heard what has already been said!”
“Granted,” he replied quickly. “And now hear what I have to say, madam. Is it right for us to risk our—” he coughed slightly—“to risk the lives of these poor peasants in a premature and ill-organized rising? The sin of doing so is a matter to be considered, madam. We should unite the—hum!—guile of the serpent——”