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“‘The Swan with Two Necks,’ Lad Lane, Cheapside,” said Lieutenant Lapenotiere.

He knew little of London, and gave the name of the hostelry at which, many years ago, he had alighted from a West Country coach with his box and midshipman’s kit . . . . A moment later he found himself wondering if it still existed as a house of entertainment. Well, he must go and seek it.

The Secretary shook hands with him, smiling wanly.

“Few men, sir, have been privileged to carry such news as you have brought us to-night.”

“And I went to sleep after delivering it,” said Lieutenant Lapenotiere, smiling back.

The night-porter escorted him to the hall, and opened the great door for him. In the portico he bade the honest man good night, and stood for a moment, mapping out in his mind his way to “The Swan with Two Necks.” He shivered slightly, after his nap, in the chill of the approaching dawn.

As the door closed behind him he was aware of a light shining, out beyond the screen of the fore-court, and again a horse blew through its nostrils on the raw air.

“Lord!” thought the Lieutenant. “That fool of a post-boy cannot have mistaken me and waited all this time!”

He hurried out into Whitehall. Sure enough a chaise was drawn up there, and a post-boy stood by the near lamp, conning a scrap of paper by the light of it. No, it was a different chaise, and a different post-boy. He wore the buff and black, whereas the other had worn the blue and white. Yet he stepped forward confidently, and with something of a smile.

“Lieutenant Lapenotiere?” he asked, reaching back and holding up his paper to the lamp to make sure of the syllables.

“That is my name,” said the amazed Lieutenant.

“I was ordered here–five-forty-five–to drive you down to Merton.”

“To Merton?” echoed Lieutenant Lapenotiere, his hand going to his pocket. The post-boy’s smile, or so much as could be seen of it by the edge of the lamp, grew more knowing.

“I ask no questions, sir.”

“But–but who ordered you?”

The post-boy did not observe, or disregarded, his bewilderment.

“A Briton’s a Briton, sir, I hope? I ask no questions, knowing my place. . . . But if so be as you were to tell me there’s been a great victory–” He paused on this.

“Well, my man, you’re right so far, and no harm in telling you.”

“Aye,” chirruped the post-boy. “When the maid called me up with the order, and said as how he and no other had called with it–“

“He?”

The fellow nodded.

“She knew him at once, from his portraits. Who wouldn’t? With his right sleeve pinned across so. . . . And, said I, ‘Then there’s been a real victory. Never would you see him back, unless. And I was right, sir!’ he concluded triumphantly.

“Let me see that piece of paper.”

“You’ll let me have it back, sir?–for a memento,” the post-boy pleaded. Lieutenant Lapenotiere took it from him–a plain half-sheet of note-paper roughly folded. On it was scribbled in pencil, back-hand wise, “Lt. Lapenotiere. Admiralty, Whitehall. At 6.30 a.m., not later. For Merton, Surrey.”

He folded the paper very slowly, and handed it back to the post-boy.

“Very well, then. For Merton.”

The house lay but a very little distance beyond Wimbledon. Its blinds were drawn as Lieutenant Lapenotiere alighted from the chaise and went up to the modest porch.

His hand was on the bell-pull. But some pressure checked him as he was on the point of ringing. He determined to wait for a while and turned away towards the garden.

The dawn had just broken; two or three birds were singing. It did not surprise–at any rate, it did not frighten–Lieutenant Lapenotiere at all, when, turning into a short pleached alley, he looked along it and saw him advancing.

–Yes, him, with the pinned sleeve, the noble, seamed, eager face. They met as friends. . . . In later years the lieutenant could never remember a word that passed, if any passed at all. He was inclined to think that they met and walked together in complete silence, for many minutes. Yet he ever maintained that they walked as two friends whose thoughts hold converse without need of words. He was not terrified at all. He ever insisted, on the contrary, that there, in the cold of the breaking day, his heart was light and warm as though flooded with first love–not troubled by it, as youth in first love is wont to be–but bathed in it; he, the ardent young officer, bathed in a glow of affection, ennobling, exalting him, making him free of a brotherhood he had never guessed.

He used also, in telling the story, to scandalise the clergyman of his parish by quoting the evangelists, and especially St. John’s narrative of Mary Magdalen at the sepulchre.

For the door of the house opened at length; and a beautiful woman, scarred by knowledge of the world, came down the alley, slowly, unaware of him. Then (said he), as she approached, his hand went up to his pocket for the private letter he carried, and the shade at his side left him to face her in the daylight.