He started to his feet. "I shall have to-morrow and a hundred to-morrows in which I shall have nothing to do but think, and think, and think. If I begin the process to-night I shall not sleep a wink."
As yet he had given neither a thought nor a glance to the room, but he now began to look about him with a little natural curiosity.
It was a somewhat gloomy chamber, the walls having been originally painted a dull chocolate color, which had not improved with the passage of time. In one corner was a large four-poster bed, with furniture of dark moreen. The dressing-table of black oak was crowded with an assortment of toilet requirements and appurtenances, silver-mounted and of most elegant workmanship.
Then his wandering glances were arrested by something--a garment of snowy whiteness--which had been laid over the back of a chair. Mr. Nevill, crossing to it, took it up gingerly and opened it. It proved to be a fine lawn chemise de nuit, frilled and trimmed with beautiful lace--a garment such as a duchess might have worn, but certainly never intended to be worn by one of the opposite sex.
Our young friend dropped it as if it were a red-hot cinder, and, sinking into the nearest chair, covered his face with his hands. From head to foot he felt as if he were one huge blush.
[CHAPTER IV.]
THE SQUIRE OF STANBROOK.
Before proceeding to narrate the sequel of the strange adventure of the soi-disant Mr. Frank Nevill, it may be as well that the reader should be made acquainted with the circumstances to which was owing his appearance on the King's highway in the character of an amateur Claude Duval.
At the time with which our narrative has to do, Mr. Ambrose Cortelyon, commonly known as Squire Cortelyon, of Stanbrook, an old family seat in one of the most northern counties of England, was well over his seventieth birthday. Thrown by his horse more than twenty years before, he had not only broken his leg, but three or four of his ribs into the bargain.
Surgical science in those days, especially in country places, was not what it is now. His leg was badly set, with the result that from that time he had been a partial cripple, who when he walked any distance alone, had to do so with the help of a couple of stout sticks, but who usually preferred the arm of his factotum, Andry Luce, and one stick.