“Well, Mr. Jermyn,” said the gentleman’s voice, immediately without my little door, “I am sorry indeed to have troubled you in this way; but I am the King’s justice of the peace and I must do my duty.  Which way did you say Mr. Mallock was gone?”

“By...by Puckeridge,” stammered poor Tom.

“Ah! indeed,” said the other voice, with something of a sneer in it.  “Why Mistress Dorothy here says it was by Barkway and so to Harwich; and of the two versions I prefer the lady’s.  For, first, we should have seen him if he had come by Puckeridge, since we have been lying there since three o’clock this afternoon; and second, no such man in his senses would go to Rome by London.  I am sorry I cannot commend your truthfulness, Mr. Jermyn, as much as your professions of loyalty.”

“I tell you—­” began my Cousin Tom, angrily enough.

“I need no telling, Mr. Jermyn.  Your cousin is gone by Barkway; and my men are gone to get the horses out to follow him.  We shall catch him before Newmarket, I make no doubt.”

Then I heard Dolly’s sobbing as she clung to her father.

“Oh! father! father!” she mourned.  “The gentleman forced it out of me.  I could not help it.  I could not help it!”

(As for me, I smiled near from ear to ear in the dark, to hear how well she feigned grief; and I think I loved my Cousin Dolly then as never before.  It would have made a cat laugh, too, to hear the gentleman’s chivalry in return.)

“Mistress Dorothy,” he said, “I grieve to have troubled you like this.  But you have done your duty as an English maid should; and set your loyalty to His Majesty before all else.”

Mistress Dorothy sobbed so admirably in return that my own eyes filled with tears to hear her; and I was a little sorry for the poor gentleman too.  He was so stupid, and yet so well mannered too now that he had got all that he wanted, or thought he had.

“Well, mistress, and Mr. Jermyn, I must not delay any longer.  The horses will be ready.”

They moved away still talking, all except my Cousin Dolly who sank upon the stairs still sobbing.  She cried out after Mr. Harris to have mercy; and then fell a-crying again.  When the door of the kitchen passage shut—­for they were all gone out by now—­her crying ceased mighty soon; and then I heard her laugh very softly to herself, and break off again, as if she had put her hand over her mouth.  But I dared not speak to her yet.

I listened very carefully—­for all the house was still now—­for the sound of the horses’ feet; and presently I heard them, and reckoned that a dozen at least must have come after me; and I heard the voices of the men too as they rode away, grow faint and cease.  Then I heard my Cousin Dolly slip through the door beneath me, and she gave me one little rap to the floor of my hiding-hole as she went beneath it.

I did not hear her come back; for Cousin Tom’s footsteps were loud in the kitchen passage; and the men too were tramping in and upstairs, while the maids went back to bed through the kitchen; and then, when all was quiet again I heard her voice speak suddenly in a whisper.