So saying, he vaulted on his horse, and with Rupert rode quietly along the road to the Chace.  The great door opened as they approached, and four lackeys with torches came out.  Colonel Holliday himself came down the steps and assisted the earl to alight, and led the way into the house.

They now entered the drawing room, where Mistress Dorothy was seated.  She arose and made a deep courtesy, in answer to the even deeper bow with which the earl greeted her.

“My lord,” she said, “welcome to Windthorpe Chace.”

“Madam,” the earl said, bowing over the hand she extended, until his lips almost touched her fingers, “I am indeed indebted to the fellows who thought to do me harm, in that they have been the means of my making the acquaintance of a lady whose charms turned all heads in London, and who left the court in gloom when she retired to the country.”

Nowadays, such a speech as this would be thought to savour of mockery, but gentlemen two hundred years since ordinarily addressed women in the language of high-flown compliment.

Mistress Holliday, despite her thirty-seven years, was still very comely, and she smiled as she replied: 

“My lord, ten years’ absence from court has rendered me unused to compliments, and I will not venture to engage in a war, even of words, with so great a general.”

Supper was now announced, and the earl offered his hand to lead Mistress Dorothy to the dining hall.

The meal passed off quietly, the conversation turning entirely upon country matters.  The earl did full justice to the fare, which consisted of a stuffed carp, fresh from the well-stocked ponds of the Chace, a boar’s head, and larded capon, the two latter dishes being cold.  With these were served tankards of Burgundy and of sherries.  Rupert, as was the custom of the younger members of families, waited upon the honoured guest.

The meal over, Mistress Holliday rose.  The earl offered her his hand and led her to the door, where, with an exchange of ceremonious salutes, she bade him goodnight.

Then the earl accompanied Colonel Holliday to the latter’s room, hung with rapiers, swords, and other arms.  There ceremony was laid aside, and the old cavalier and the brilliant general entered into familiar talk, the former lighting a long pipe, of the kind known at present as a “churchwarden.”

The earl told Colonel Holliday of the discovery that had been made, that the attack was no mere affair with highwaymen, but an attempt at assassination by a political rival.

“I had been down,” he said, “at Lord Hadleigh’s, where there was a gathering of many gentlemen of our way of thinking.  I left London quietly, and thought that none knew of my absence; but it is clear that through some spy in my household my enemies learned both my journey and destination.  I came down on horseback, having sent forward relays.  When I arrived last night at Hadleigh my horse was