“A tough customer. Do they leave you alone the whole night?”
“Yes.”
“Time, an auger, and a good knife will serve then. I have a place to take you to. You will trust me in this?”
“John, need you ask that?”
“Dear heart of mine, no, no. Now for a rope’s-end. When I am safe below I will give three twitches to the rope. Draw it up, dear, and hide it in your bed.”
“Yes.”
“And, child, if you are in danger, or fear anything, tear off a piece of linen and tie it to one of the bars. I shall storm in then without by your leave or welcome, and deal with those gentry at the point of the sword.”
He kissed her fingers, hung there a moment, and then unwound the rope from about his body. Fastening it, he touched her hands through the bars of the window and went down into the night.
XXXIV
There were two link-boys waiting outside Lord Gore’s house in St. James’s Street when a short, stumpy woman came hurrying along with the hood of her cloak down over her head. The street door of the house was open, and a servant waiting on the step with a fur cloak over one arm and a sword under the other.