He bent over it and kissed it, and there was more than courtesy in the warmth of the kiss.

“But I’m glad you’ve come.  I did not look for you for another week,” he said in a low voice.  He did not, however, offer to help her to alight.

“This is your lodging?” she asked.

“No,” said he, “the King’s;” and the woman shrank suddenly back amongst her cushions.  In a moment, however, her face was again at the door.

“Then who was he,—­my postillion?”

“Your postillion?” asked Whittington, glancing at the servant who held the horses.

“Yes, the tall man who looked as if he should have been a scholar and had twisted himself all awry into a soldier.  You must have passed him in the hall.”

Whittington stared at her.  Then he burst again into a laugh.

“Your postillion, was he?  That’s the oddest thing,” and he lowered his voice.  “Your postillion was Mr. Charles Wogan, who comes from Rome post-haste with the Pope’s procuration for the marriage.  You have helped him on his way, it seems.  Here’s a good beginning, to be sure.”

The lady uttered a little cry of anger, and her face hardened out of all its softness.  She clenched her fists viciously, and her blue eyes grew cold and dangerous as steel.  At this moment she hardly looked the delicate flower she had appeared to Wogan’s fancy.

“But you need not blame yourself,” said Whittington, and he lowered his head to a level with hers.  “All the procurations in Christendom will not marry James Stuart to Clementina Sobieski.”

“She has not come, then?”

“No, nor will she come.  There is news to-day.  Lean back from the window, and I will tell you.  She has been arrested at Innspruck.”

The lady could not repress a crow of delight.

“Hush,” said Whittington.  Then he withdrew his head and resumed in his ordinary voice, “I have hired a house for your Ladyship, which I trust will be found convenient.  My servant will drive you thither.”

He summoned his servant from the group of footmen about the entrance, gave him his orders, bowed to the ground, and twisting his cane sauntered idly down the street.

CHAPTER II

Wogan mounted the stairs, not daring to speculate upon the nature of the bad news.  But his face was pale beneath its sunburn, and his hand trembled on the balustrade; for he knew—­in his heart he knew.  There could be only one piece of news which would make his haste or tardiness matters of no account.

Both branches of the stairs ran up to a common landing, and in the wall facing him, midway between the two stairheads, was a great door of tulip wood.  An usher stood by the door, and at Wogan’s approach opened it.  Wogan, however, signed to him to be silent.  He wished to hear, not to speak, and so he slipped into the room unannounced.  The door was closed silently behind him, and at once he was