“Well,” he said.  “What must be, must.  I will see His Majesty.  He is not yet gone to supper.”

At the door he turned again.

“The verdict was Guilty?” he said.  “You were there and heard it?”

I told him Yes; for I was all impatient.

“And how was that verdict received in court?”

“It was applauded,” I said shortly.

He still waited an instant.  Then he went out.

* * * * *

I was all in a fever till he came back; for his manner and his hesitation had renewed my terrors.  Yet still I would not let myself doubt.  I went up and down the room, and looked at the pictures in it.  There was a little one by Lely, not finished, of my Lady Castlemaine, done before she was made Duchess, which I suppose the King had given to him; but I remembered afterwards nothing else that I saw at that time.

In about half an hour he came back again; but he shut the door behind him before he spoke.

“His Majesty will see you in a few minutes,” he said, “but he goes to supper presently; and must not be detained.  And there is something else that I must ask you first.”

I was all impatient to be gone; but impatience would not help me at all.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, sitting down, “did you see any man following you from the Court?  Or at the doors of the Palace?”

My heart stood still when he said that; for though I had done my best at all times for the last month or two to pass unnoticed so far as I could, I had known well enough that having been so much with the Jesuits as I had, it was not impossible that I had been marked by some spy or other, or even by Oates himself, since he had seen me go into Mr. Fenwick’s lodgings.  But I had fancied of late that I must have escaped notice, and had been more bold lately, as in going to the Court to-day.

“Followed?” I said.  “What do you mean, Mr. Chiffinch?”

“You saw no fellow after you, or loitering near, at the gates, as you came in?”

“I saw no one,” I said.

“The gates were barred, as usual?”

“Yes,” I said.  “And the guard fetched a lieutenant before he would let me in.”

(For ever since the late alarms extraordinary precautions had been taken in keeping the great gates of the Palace always guarded.)

“And you saw no one after you?”

“No one,” I said.

“Well,” said Mr. Chiffinch, “a fellow was after you.  For when you were gone in he came up to the guard and asked who you were, and by what right you had entered.  The lieutenant sent a mail to tell me so, and I met him in the passage as I went out.”

“Who was the fellow?”

“Oh! a man called Dangerfield.  The lieutenant very prudently detained him; and I went across and questioned him before I went to His Majesty.  I know nothing of the man, except that he hath been convicted, for I saw the branding in his hand when we examined him.  We let him go again immediately.”