“Would she had!” groaned Leonard.

“Is she still at Ashdown?” pursued the grocer.  “Ah! you shake your head.  I see!—­I must be beside myself not to have thought of it before.  She is in the power of the Earl of Rochester.”

“She is,” cried Leonard, catching at the angle of the shed for support.

“And I am here!” exclaimed Mr. Bloundel, forgetting his caution, and thrusting himself far out of the window, as if with the intention of letting himself down by the rope—­“I am here, when I ought to be near her!”

“Calm yourself, I beseech you, sir,” cried Leonard; “a moment’s rashness will undo all you have done.”

“True!” replied the grocer, checking himself.  “I must think of others as well as of her.  But where is she?  Hide nothing from me.”

“I have reason to believe she is in London,” replied the apprentice.  “I traced her hither, and should not have desisted from my search if I had not been checked by the plague, which attacked me on the night of my arrival.  I was taken to the pesthouse near Westbourne Green, where I have been for the last three weeks.”

“If she was brought to London, as you state,” rejoined the grocer, “I cannot doubt but she has fallen a victim to the scourge.”

“It may be,” replied Leonard, moodily, “and I would almost hope it is so.  When you peruse my letters, you will learn that she was carried off by the earl from the residence of a lady at Kingston Lisle, whither she had been removed for safety; and after being taken from place to place, was at last conveyed to an old hall in the neighbourhood of Oxford, where she was concealed for nearly a month.”

“Answer me, Leonard,” cried the grocer, “and do not attempt to deceive me.  Has she preserved her honour?”

“Up to the time of quitting Oxford she had preserved it,” replied the apprentice.  “She herself assured me she had resisted all the earl’s importunities, and would die rather than yield to him.  But I will tell you how I obtained an interview with her.  After a long search, I discovered the place of her concealment, the old hall I have just mentioned, and climbed in the night, and at the hazard of my life, to the window of the chamber where she was confined.  I saw and spoke with her; and having arranged a plan by which I hoped to accomplish her deliverance on the following night, descended.  Whether our brief conference was overheard, and communicated to the earl, I know not; but it would seem so, for he secretly departed with her the next morning, taking the road, as I subsequently learnt, to London.  I instantly started in pursuit, and had reached Paddington, when I fell ill, as I have related.”

“What you tell me in some measure eases my mind,” replied Mr. Bloundel, after a pause; “for I feel that my daughter, if alive, will be able to resist her persecutor.  What has become of your companions?”