“I am coming down,” cried Mrs. Thomas, and vanished from the gallery.

Mr. Biddell acted with decision.  He whisked out again into the passage from the court, and there ran straight into Marjorie, who was coming in from the little enclosed garden at the back of the house.

“Quick!” he said.  “Quick!  Mrs. Thomas is coming, and I do not wish—­”

She led the way without a word back into the court, along a few steps, and up again to the house into a little back parlour that the steward used when the house was full.  It was unoccupied now, and looked out into the garden whence she was just come.  She locked the door when he had entered, and came and sat down out of sight of any that might be passing.

“Sit here,” she said; and then:  “Well?” she asked.

He looked at her gravely and sadly, shaking his head once or twice.  Then he drew out a paper or two from a little lawyer’s valise that he carried, and, as he did so, heard a hand try the door outside.

“That is Mrs. Thomas,” whispered the girl.  “She will not find us.”

He waited till the steps moved away again.  Then he began.  He looked anxious and dejected.

“I fear it is precisely as you thought,” he said.  “I have followed up every rumour in the place.  And the first thing that is certain is that Topcliffe leaves Derby in two days from now.  I had it as positive information that his men have orders to prepare for it.  The second thing is that Topcliffe is greatly elated; and the third is that Mr. FitzHerbert will be released as soon as Topcliffe is gone.”

“You are sure this time, sir?”

He assented by a movement of his head.

“I dared not tell Mrs. Thomas just now.  She would give me no peace.  I said it was but a rumour, and so it is; but it is a rumour that hath truth behind it.  He hath been moved, too, these three days back, to another cell, and hath every comfort.”

He shook his head again.

“But he hath made no promise—­” began Marjorie breathlessly.

“It is exactly that which I am most afraid of,” said the lawyer.  “If he had yielded, and, consented to go to church, it would have been in every man’s mouth by now.  But he hath not, and I should fear it less if he had.  That’s the very worst part of my news.”

“I do not understand—­”

Mr. Biddell tapped his papers on the table.

“If he were an open and confessed enemy, I should fear it less,” he repeated.  “It is not that.  But he must have given some promise to Topcliffe that pleases the fellow more.  And what can that be but that—­”

Marjorie turned yet whiter.  She sighed once as if to steady herself.  She could not speak, but she nodded.

“Yes, Mistress Manners,” said the old man.  “I make no doubt at all that he hath promised to assist him against them all—­against Mr. John his father, it may be, or Mr. Bassett, or God knows whom!  And yet still feigning to be true!  And that is not all.”