“This way, Scipio,” she said, tripping ahead of the mulatto to point out the madeira bin.  “We shall give my Lord and his gentlemen the best the Appleby cellar holds to speed their parting.”  Wherewith she stood aside to wait whilst he filled his basket with the straw-cased bottles.

At this I saw why she had come.  Lord Cornwallis and his gentlemen were about to take the road, and the wine was wanted for the stirrup-cup.  Trusting my fate to no hand less loyal than her own, she had come herself with Scipio to stand betwixt me and possible discovery.  And her word to the serving man was also a word to me to let me know my prisonment was near an end.

I thought it a most generous thing in her; the last of all her many wifely loyalties; and I would have given much for leave to stand forth and tell her so.  Indeed, when the mulatto had poised his basket upon his head and vanished, and she was lingering to take a last look around before she followed him, I was upon the point of speaking.

But whilst I hesitated I saw her start back with a little cry of terror.  Standing in the arched doorway through which the mulatto had but now passed was a man cloaked, hatted, booted and spurred as for the road.  At her cry he doffed his hat and ...

My dears, I shall never be able to draw for you the hideous death-mask this man was wearing for a face.  Seamed and scarred, shriveled and livid in purple and crimson welts, you would think a nine-thonged whip of fire had scourged out every semblance of comeliness, leaving only the skeleton frame on which to hang this ghastly caricature of a human face.  Fearing him not at all, I could scarce forbear a shudder at the sight of this walking death-mask of the libertine, Sir Francis Falconnet.

And if his face were terrifying in repose, ’twas fair demoniac when he laughed.

“Ha!” he said, bowing again in a mockery of politeness.  “You are surprised, Mistress Margery; you heard my Lord’s order and thought I would be by now some miles on the road to Salisbury?”

“If you were the loyal soldier you should be, sir,” she said, drawing herself up proudly, “you would be at the head of your troop, as his Lordship directed.”  And then, with a gesture that was most queenly:  “Stand aside, Sir—­Libertine, and let me pass.”

His answer was another mocking laugh, and he stepped within to close the door and lock it.  When he turned to front her again his face was the face of a tormented devil.

“By God! you think too lightly of me, Mistress Margery.  Before ever this day dawned I owed you much, but like a spiteful little hellicat you must needs add to the score by making me a target for your wit at the supper-table.  ’Twill cost a life to more than one of them who laughed with you, my lady, but ’twill cost you dearer still.”

He came nearer as he spoke, thrusting that horrible face farther into the circle of candle-light; but she would not draw back nor flinch a hair, and I marked that the hand that held the candlestick was as steady as a rock.  But when he made an end she flung a quick glance over her shoulder and my heart leaped for joy.  For then I knew she was leaning upon me.