I think that at this point he faced around and eyed me for the first time.  But I made show that I had dropped asleep.  I heard him swear under his breath, and half a minute later he left the room.

He had been offering me escape.  But why?  I turned his words over, and the more I turned them the less I liked them.  He had given me a suspicious number of openings to prove that the right lay with my party.  It seemed to me that, on half a hint, this man meant to desert.  Yes, and his wife—­I recalled her words—­held him in some trap.  And yet, recalling her face, I could not shake off the fancy that she, rather than he, stood in need of help.

Pondering all this, still with my eyes closed, I dropped asleep in good earnest.

I awoke from a sleep of many hours, to see old Pascoe standing at the bed’s foot.  No doubt his entrance had disturbed me.

He carried my boots in one hand, a can of hot water in the other, my stockings and a clean shirt across his arm; and he announced that the hour was four o’clock, and at half-past four Sir Luke and his lady would be dining.  If I felt myself sufficiently recovered, they desired the pleasure of my company.

I sat upright on the bed.  My head yet swam, but sleep had refreshed me, and a pull at the wine—­which had stood all this while untasted—­ set me on pretty good terms with myself.  I bade the old man carry my compliments to his lady and tell her that I will thankfully do her pleasure.  ‘But first,’ said I, ’you must stand by and see me into a clean shirt.’

He did more.  The stab in my upper arm had bled a little, and the shirt-sleeve could not be pulled from it without pain.  He drew a pair of scissors from his side-pocket and cut the linen away from around the wound:  and then, having noted my weakness, helped me to wash and dress, drew on stockings and boots for me, nor left me until he had buckled on my sword-belt, and then only with an excuse that he must change his coat before waiting at table.  Sir Luke and Lady Glynn (he assured me) would be by this time awaiting me in the dining-room.

Sure enough I found them there, my lady standing by the midmost window and gazing down upon the park, Sir Luke by the fireplace with an arm resting on the high mantel-ledge and one muddied boot jabbing at the logs of a new-made fire till the flame roared up the chimney.  I wondered what madness could command so huge a blaze in the month of August (albeit ’twas the last of the month), until he turned and I saw that he had been drinking heavily.

It seemed that Lady Glynn had not heard me enter, for as I paused, a little within the doorway, she leaned forward without turning and pushed open a lattice of the window.  I supposed that she did this to abate the heat of the fire in the room.  But no; she was leaning and listening to the sound of guns far in the west.  The sound—­I had heard it in my sleep and again at intervals while dressing—­broke heavily on the mist that damped the panes and drifted through the opening with a breeze that set the curls waving about her neck and puffed out the silken shawl she had drawn around her naked shoulders.