He walked away.  Outside the gates he paused and shook his clinched fist menacingly at the noble old house.

“I’ll pay you out, my fine feller, if ever I get a chance!  You’re a very great man, and a very proud man, Sir Everard Kingsland, and you own a fine fortune and a haughty, handsome wife, and G. W. Parmalee’s no more than the mud under your feet.  Very well—­we’ll see!  ’Every dog has his day,’ and ‘the longest lane has its turning,’ and you’re near about the end of your tether, and George Parmalee has you and your fine lady under his thumb—­under his thumb—­and he’ll crush you, sir—­yes, by Heaven, he’ll crush you, and strike you back blow for blow!”

True to his word, ho ordered unlimited supplies of brown paper and vinegar, rum and water, pipes and tobacco, swore at his questioners, and adjourned to his bedroom to await the coming of nightfall and Sybilla Silver.

The short winter day wore on.  A good conscience, a sound digestion, rum and smoke ad libitum, enabled our wounded artist to sleep comfortably through it, and he was still snoring when Mrs. Wedge, the landlady, came to his bedside with a flaring tallow candle, and woke him up.

“Which I’ve been a-knockin’ and a-knockin’,” Mrs. Wedge cried, shrilly, “fit to knock the skin off my blessed knuckles, Mr. Parmalee, and couldn’t wake you no more’n the dead.  And he’s a-waitin’ down-stairs, which he won’t come up, but says it’s most particular, and must see you at once.”

“Hold your noise!” growled the artist, tumbling out of bed.  “What’s o’clock?  Leave that candle and clear out, and tell the young feller I’ll be down in a brace of shakes.”

“I couldn’t see him,” replied Mrs. Wedge, “which he’s that muffled up in a long cloak and a cap drawed down that his own mother herself couldn’t tell him hout there in the dark.  Was you a-expectin’ of him, sir?”

“That’s no business of yours, Mrs. Wedge,” the American answered, grimly.  “You can go.”

Mrs. Wedge departed in displeasure, and tried again to see the muffled stranger.  But he was looking out into the darkness, and the good landlady was completely baffled.

She saw her lodger join him; she saw the hero of the cloak take his arm, and both walk briskly away.

“By George! this is a disguise!” exclaimed Mr. Parmalee.  “I wouldn’t recognize you at noonday in this trim.  Do you know who I took you for until you spoke?”

“Whom?”

“Sir Everard himself.  You’re as like him as two peas in that rig, only not so tall.”

“The cloak and cap are his,” Miss Silver answered, “which perhaps accounts—­”

“No,” he said, “there’s more than that.  I might put on that cap and cloak, but I wouldn’t look like the baronet.  Your voices sound alike, and there’s a general air—­I can’t describe it, but you know what I mean.  You’re no relation of his, are you, Sybilla?”

“A relation of the Prince of Kingsland—­poor little Sybilla Silver!  My good Mr. Parmalee, what an absurd idea!  You do me proud even to hint that, the blue blood of all the Kingslands could by any chance flow in these plebeian veins!  Oh, no, indeed!  I am only an upper servant in that great house, and would lose my place within the hour if its lordly master dreamed I was here talking to the man he hates.”