She hurried through the house as if upon some indoor quest, found herself alone in the garden, recovered her cloak and parcel, and went to unfasten the gate.
"'Tis I, Master Holyday," she said, in a low tone, as she loosened the bolt.
"Good! good! excellent!" came the scholar's reply from outside the gate, in a voice rather parched and excited.
Having slid back the bolt, she made to pull the gate open, but it would not move.
"What is the matter?" quoth she. "I cannot open it. Push it from your side."
She heard his hands laid against it, then his shoulder, then his back. But it would not budge. She examined it closely in the dusky light, and suddenly gave a little cry of despair.
"Oh, me! There is a new lock on the gate, and God knows where is the key!"
During the afternoon, in fact, Master Etheridge, alarmed by the easy entrance obtained by Ravenshaw and Gregory the previous night, and by Ravenshaw's exit from the garden that day,—an exit after which the gate had been left open,—had caused an additional lock to be put on, a lock to be opened by means of a key which the goldsmith thought best to keep in his own care.
"Oh, what shall I do?" she cried, after a futile tug at the lock.