out, she shook her head, and said, “Ne comprends pas.”  She, however, brought in the rest of the clothes, warm water, and a light, so that Anne rose and dressed, exceedingly perplexed, and wondering whether she could be in a ship, for the sounds seemed to say so, and there was no corresponding motion.  Could she be in France?  Certainly the voyage had seemed interminable, but she did not think it could have been long enough for that, nor that any person in his senses would try to cross in an open boat in such weather.  She looked at the window, a tiny slip of glass, too thick to show anything but what seemed to be a dark wall rising near at hand.  Alas! she was certainly a prisoner!  In whose hands?  With what intent?  How would it affect that other prisoner at Winchester?  Was that vision of last night substantial or the work of her exhausted brain?  What could she do?  It was well for her that she could believe in the might of prayer.

She durst not go beyond her door, for she heard men’s tones, suppressed and gruff, but presently there was a knock, and wonder of wonders, she beheld Hans, black Hans, showing all his white teeth in a broad grin, and telling her that Missee Anne’s breakfast was ready.  The curtain that overhung the door was drawn back, and she passed into another small room, with a fire on the open hearth, and a lamp hung from a beam, the walls all round covered with carpets or stuffs of thick glowing colours, so that it was like the inside of a tent.  And in the midst, without doubt, stood Peregrine Oakshott, in such a dress as was usually worn by gentlemen in the morning—­a loose wrapping coat, though with fine lace cuffs and cravat, all, like the shoes and silk stockings, worn with his peculiar daintiness, and, as was usual when full-bottomed wigs were the rule in grande tenue, its place supplied by a silken cap.  This was olive green with a crimson tassel, which had assumed exactly the characteristic one-sided Riquet-with-a-tuft aspect.  For the rest, these years seemed to have made the slight form slighter and more wiry, and the face keener, more sallow, and more marked.

He bowed low with the foreign courtesy which used to be so offensive to his contemporaries, and offered a delicate, beringed hand to lead the young lady to the little table, where grilled fowl and rolls, both showing the cookery of Hans, were prepared for her.

“I hope you rested well, and have an appetite this morning.”

“Sir, what does it all mean?  Where am I?” asked Anne, drawing herself up with the native dignity that she felt to be her defence.

“In Elf-land,” he said, with a smile, as he heaped her plate.

“Speak in earnest,” she entreated.  “I cannot eat till I understand.  It is no time for trifling!  Life and death hang on my reaching London!  If you saved me from those men, let me go free.”

“No one can move at present,” he said.  “See here.”