"You eluded them! How was that?"

Well; I told him as shortly as I could; and he laughed outright when I came to my Cousin Dolly's part in it.

"Why: that was very wittily done!" he said. "The minx!"

I did not much like that; but I could not find fault with the King.

"And I was at Tyburn this morning, Sir."

"What! At Tyburn!"

"At Tyburn, Sir; and I was so sick at heart at what I saw there—five of Your Majesty's most faithful servants murdered in the name of justice, that I would not have cared greatly if I had been hanged with them."

His face darkened a little; but not with anger at me.

"It is a bloody business, as I have said," he said gently. "But come!—it is to France that you go."

"There is as good as any other place," I said, "so I be out of the kingdom. I have estates there, too."