One morning in the summer third of June my lady came early and surprised me at this business of pacing back and forth.  Whereat she scolded me as was her wont when I grew restive.

“What weighty thing have you to do that you should be so fierce to be about it, Monsieur Impetuous?” she cried. “Fi donc! you’d try the patience of a saint!”

“Which you are not,” I ventured.  “But truly, Margery, I am growing stronger now, and the bed does irk me desperately, if you must know.  Besides—­”

“Well, what is there else besides?  Do I not pamper you enough?”

I laughed.  “I’ll say whatever you would have me say—­so it be not the truth.”

“I’ll have you say nothing until you sit down.”

She pushed the great chair of Indian wickerwork into place before the window-bay, and when I was at rest she drew up a low hassock and sat at my feet.

“Now you may go on,” she said.

“You have not told me what you would have me say.”

“The truth,” she commanded.

“‘"What is truth,” said jesting Pilate,’” I quoted.  “Why do you suppose my Lord Bacon thought the Roman procurator jested at such a time and place?”

“You are quibbling, Monsieur John.  I want to know why you are so impatient to be gone.”

“Saw you ever a man worthy the name who could be content to bide inactive when duty calls?”

“That is not the whole truth,” she said, half absently.  “You think you are unwelcome here.”

“’Twas you said that; not I. But I must needs know your father will be relieved when he is safely quit of me.”

“’Twas you said that, not I, Monsieur John,” she retorted, giving me back my own words.  “Has ever word been brought you that he would speed your parting?”

“Surely not, since I am still here.  But you must know that I have never seen his face, as yet.”

“And is that strange?  You must not forget that he is Gilbert Stair, and you are Roger Ireton’s son.”

“I am not likely to forget it.  But still a word of welcome to the unbidden guest would not have come amiss.  And it was none of my seeking—­this asylum in his house.”

“True; but that has naught to do with any coolness of my father’s.”

“What is it, then?—­besides the fact that I am Roger Ireton’s son?”

“I think ’twas what you said to Mr. Pengarvin.”

“That little smirking wretch?  What has he to say or do in this?”

She looked away from me and said:  “He is my father’s factor and man of affairs.”

“Ah, I have always to be craving your pardon, Margery.  But I said naught to this parchment-faced—­to this Mr. Pengarvin, that might offend your father, or any.”

“How, then, will you explain this, that you swore to drive my father from Appleby Hundred as soon as ever you had raised a following among the rebels?”

“’Tis easily explained:  this thrice-accursed—­oh, pardon me again, I pray you; I will not name him any name at all.  What I meant to say was that he lied.  I made no threats to him; to tell the plain truth, I was too fiercely mad to bandy words with him.”