“Try to tempt him away with some meat!” commanded the exasperated prisoner.

“Ay, that’s what I’ll do!” agreed Barrow, and went off to procure some of the mutton laid out for Elinor’s refreshment.

He returned with this and with Mrs. Barrow too, who stalked in armed with a long-handled broom, declaring her intention of soon ridding mistress of the plaguey creature. Bouncer, not unnaturally, took instant exception to the broom, and such a pandemonium of barking, scolding, and growling ensued that Elinor could only beg her would-be rescuer to go away. Barrow then held down the plate of meat and chirped at Bouncer, who made one of his short rushes at him and so caused him to drop the plate and leap back to the door. Bouncer hastily consumed the offering, licked his lips, and waited expectantly for more.

“There’s only one thing to be done, ma’am,” said Barrow. “I’ll have to shoot him, that’s what I’ll have to do.”

“Good God, no!” cried Elinor. “I would not have you do such a thing for the world! Why, whatever would Master Nicky say?”

“Master Nicky indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Barrow indignantly. “I’ll Master Nicky him when I see him! The idea of his playing off his tricks on you, ma’am! I’ve a very good mind to tell his lordship what a naughty boy he is!”

“Indeed, I—I think he meant it for the best!” said Elinor. “And he said he would come back presently. Do you think you could contrive to bring a tray to me, with some bread and butter and coffee? And perhaps you might also push that table to where I may reach it, so that I may at least occupy myself with darning those tablecloths!”

Bouncer seemed disinclined at first to permit this disarrangement of the room, but Mrs. Barrow had the happy notion of bribing him with a large marrow bone. He accepted this and lay down with it between his paws, gnawing it, and beyond growling in a minatory fashion made no further objection to the table’s being pushed toward Elinor. He seemed so intent on his bone that she tried the experiment of rising from her chair. This was going too far, however, and she was obliged to sit down again in a hurry. Bouncer then returned to his bone. His teeth appeared to be in excellent condition. When Mrs. Barrow cautiously came back into the room with a tray he cocked a watchful eye at her and paused in his work of demolition to consider the possibilities of the tray. He evidently thought it worth while to investigate it, for he rose and approached the table, Mrs. Barrow told him to be off, so he chased her from the room and returned to try what blackmail could achieve in the way of sustenance. Elinor gave him a crust, which he rejected scornfully. He went back to his bone and remained happily occupied with it for some time and finally buried what remained of it under one of the sofa cushions.

“You are an odious animal!” Elinor said severely. “I hope your master beats you!”

He yawned at her contemptuously, cast himself down before the fire again, and resumed his vigil.

Not until nearly five o’clock did Nicky return to Highnoons, and by that time Elinor was in such a temper that she could happily have boxed his ears. He was admitted by Barrow, who had evidently told him how his plan had miscarried, for he came at once to the bookroom, laughing delightedly and saying, “Oh, Cousin Elinor, indeed I beg your pardon! Have you been there all day? I don’t mean to laugh, but it is the drollest thing!” He bent over Bouncer, who was frisking round him joyfully. “You rascal, what have you been about? Yes, good dog. Down! Down!”

“He is not a good dog! He is an excessively bad dog!” said Elinor, quite exasperated. “It is all very well for you to stand there laughing and encouraging that horrid creature, but I am quite out of patience with you!”

“Well, I am really excessively sorry,” Nicky said penitently, “but it was not Bouncer’s fault! He did not perfectly understand me! But only fancy his guarding you like that all this while! I cannot help being pleased with him for, you know, I was not above half sure that he would guard anything! You must own that he is a clever fellow!”

“I own nothing of the sort,” said Elinor, getting up and shaking out her skirts. “He appears to me to have a very disordered intellect. And pray what have you been about all this time? And where is your brother?”

“Oh, he is not here!” Nicky said blithely. “When I reached home again our butler told me that he was gone up to London. He will not be back until tomorrow, I dare say. But do not be in a pucker, ma’am! I mean to stay with you, and only fancy if we caught that stranger without Ned’s knowing anything about it! That would be something, wouldn’t it?”

“Nicky, I am in no humor for this nonsense, and so I warn you!” said Elinor. “If Lord Carlyon is away from home, I insist on your securing that door!”

“Oh, no, I have a much better notion than that!” Nicky said blithely. “If you should not dislike it, I mean to spend the night in that room abovestairs, and then if anyone comes up the secret stair, I shall catch him.”

The outraged widow gave him to understand in the plainest terms that nothing could exceed her dislike of this project. He remained entirely unconvinced, merely setting himself to coax and cajole her into relenting. After twenty minutes of his persuasive eloquence she began to weaken, partly because she was a kindhearted woman and perceived that a refusal to let him amuse himself in this way would bitterly disappoint him, and partly because from having had a good deal to do with young gentlemen of tender years she was well aware that however weary of the argument she might be, he would be ready to continue it with unabated vigor until a late hour of the night. She gave way at last, and with an acid reference to the well-known effect of the dropping of water upon stones, said that he might do as he pleased.

Passing over this rider with all the air of one too well accustomed to listen to such odious comparisons to pay any heed to them, Nicky favored her with one of his blinding smiles and said that he had known all along that she was pluck to the backbone. She thanked him for this tribute and inquired how he meant to account for his presence in the house to the Barrows.

“Oh, there can be no difficulty!” he answered. “I shall say you are in the fidgets because of what happened last night, and I am come so that you may be comfortable.”

“Well, if you are set on keeping watch over that stair, I think you should tell Barrow the whole, and let him bear you company,” she said.

This, however, he would by no means agree to, indignantly demanding whether she thought him to be incapable of dealing unassisted with any midnight marauder. She mendaciously assured him that she had every confidence in his ability to capture, single-handed, any number of desperate persons, and he relented enough to show her a serviceable pistol which he had had the forethought to bring with him.

She eyed this weapon with misgiving. “Is it loaded?” she asked.

“Loaded! Ay, of course it is loaded!” he said impatiently. “What would be the use of it if it were not, pray? It is not cocked, however, so if you are thinking that it may go off you may be quite easy on that score.”

“Oh!” she said. “Is it your own pistol?”

“Well, no,” he admitted airily. “As it happens, it is one of Ned’s. But he will not object to my having borrowed it.”

“Oh!” said Elinor again. She added carelessly, “I dare say you are quite in the habit of using firearms?”

“Good God, yes!” he replied. “Why, what a flat you must be thinking me! Ned taught me to handle a gun when I was scarcely breeched!”

“Did he indeed?” said Elinor politely. “What a prodigy you must have been! I had no notion of it! You must forgive me!”

He grinned. “Well, I am sure I was no more than twelve, at all events; And naturally I have shot at Manton’s times out of mind. I don’t mean to say that I am a crack shot like Ned and Harry, but I have more than once culped a wafer.”

“You put me quite at my ease. And yet I cannot help thinking that perhaps it might be as well if you did not shoot at anyone unless you found yourself absolutely obliged to.”

“Indeed I shall not! Particularly now that this inquest is hanging over us all. I don’t wish to be putting Ned to more trouble, you know.”

“No,” she agreed. “I do feel that to expect him to bring you off safe from two such inquiries might tax even his ingenuity a little far.”

“Oh, he would contrive it, never fear!” he said cheerfully. “But don’t put yourself in a pucker! I don’t mean to do more than hold the fellow up and discover what mischief he is up to. And I’ll tell you what, Cousin Elinor. If he does come again, I shall not show myself immediately. I shall follow him to see where he goes and what he finds. I think that is what I should do, don’t you?”

She agreed to it, tactfully concealing from him her comfortable conviction that no midnight visitor was at all likely to reward his vigil. Had she had any real fear that the Frenchman would return she must, she believed, have alienated her youthful guest forever by divulging the whole to Barrow. She was happy in not feeling herself obliged to spoil sport in this dreary fashion, and volunteered instead to acquaint the Barrows with Ms intention of spending the night at Highnoons.

The information was greeted in the kitchen with scant favor. Mrs. Barrow opined darkly that she knew Master Nick well enough to be in no doubt that-he-was up to some mischief, while Barrow said that in his opinion to have Master Nick capering about like a fly in a tar box could afford no comfort whatsoever to anyone suffering from nervous qualms. “I tell you to your head, ma’am, that Master Nick, not to wrap it up in clean linen, is tedious loose in the hilts!” he said severely.

Mrs. Barrow, with a passing admonition to him to hold his tongue, informed her mistress that this bodeful pronouncement meant merely that Master Nick, being but a lad, was scarcely to be relied on. “But it’s no matter!” she said. “He’ll be company for you, I dare say, ma’am. But mind you make him tie that nasty dog of his up!”

This, in the event, proved to be unnecessary. Nicky had already decided that Bouncer must be shut up in one of the loose boxes, for fear of his giving tongue at the approach of a stranger. The faithful hound, therefore, after being regaled with a large plateful of meat and broken biscuits, was led off stableward, bearing in his jaws the remnants of the bone with which his hostess had thoughtfully presented him. His attitude to her now was that of one who in the execution of his duty yet bore no malice toward his victim. She could not acquit him of grinning at her, and told him that he was a vile creature, a tribute which he accepted with a flattening of his ears and a perfunctory wag of the tail.

Mrs. Cheviot and the Honorable Nicholas Carlyon dined very cosily together, off a neck of veal stewed with rice, onions, and peppercorns, followed by pippin tarts, and some ramekins which moved Nicky to send a message to the kitchen assuring Mrs. Barrow of favorable treatment if ever she should desire a post as cook up at the Hall. Barrow then set a decanter of port on the table and Elinor very correctly withdrew to the bookroom, whither her guest soon followed her with a suggestion that they should while away the evening with a rubber or two of piquet. As the pockets of both gamesters were, in Nicky’s phrase, wholly to let, they played for fabulous but imaginary stakes, with the result that when the tea tray was brought in Elinor found herself several thousand pounds to the good. Nicky very handsomely said that he only wished he could pay her the half of such a sum and they sat down to drink their tea in perfect amity.

Nicholas favored his hostess with some reminiscences of his past career which made her laugh heartily. In her turn she entranced him with an account of her father’s exploits in every realm of sport, and in this way an hour or two was very pleasantly beguiled. In fact, on such easy terms with Nicky did Elinor feel herself to be by the time they went up to bed that she seriously jeopardized the honorable position she held in his esteem by suggesting that he should allow her to have the bed made up in the room he meant to occupy so that he might pass the night in comfort. His shocked face recalled her to her senses, however, and she made haste to beg pardon, assuring him that she had spoken without thinking. He explained to her with the utmost patience that the sight of a gentleman sleeping in that room would effectually scare any intruder into a precipitate retreat. She confessed that she had been shatterbrained from a child, and they parted on the best of terms, she to lie awake for some time smiling over the simple enthusiasm of an engaging boy, he to stretch himself out on the unmade bed in the little square room determined on no account to fall asleep.