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He did more. The stab in my upper arm had bled a little, and the shirt-sleeve could not be pulled from it without pain. He drew a pair of scissors from his side-pocket and cut the linen away from around the wound: and then, having noted my weakness, helped me to wash and dress, drew on stockings and boots for me, nor left me until he had buckled on my sword-belt, and then only with an excuse that he must change his coat before waiting at table. Sir Luke and Lady Glynn (he assured me) would be by this time awaiting me in the dining-room.

Sure enough I found them there, my lady standing by the midmost window and gazing down upon the park, Sir Luke by the fireplace with an arm resting on the high mantel-ledge and one muddied boot jabbing at the logs of a new-made fire till the flame roared up the chimney. I wondered what madness could command so huge a blaze in the month of August (albeit ’twas the last of the month), until he turned and I saw that he had been drinking heavily.

It seemed that Lady Glynn had not heard me enter, for as I paused, a little within the doorway, she leaned forward without turning and pushed open a lattice of the window. I supposed that she did this to abate the heat of the fire in the room. But no; she was leaning and listening to the sound of guns far in the west. The sound–I had heard it in my sleep and again at intervals while dressing–broke heavily on the mist that damped the panes and drifted through the opening with a breeze that set the curls waving about her neck and puffed out the silken shawl she had drawn around her naked shoulders.

Sir Luke looked up, and was the first to catch sight of me.

‘Hear the guns?’ he said. ‘Your foot hasn’t the luck of your horse. The King caught ’em, drove ’em back over Lestithiel Bridge, and has been keeping ’em on the run all day, pressing ’em t’wards the coast.’

‘Is that the report?’ I asked.

‘That’s my report,’ he answered; ‘and’–thrusting forward one bemired boot–‘you may count on it. I’ve been following and watching the fun.’

By this time Lady Glynn had turned and came past her husband to greet me, without throwing him a look.

‘You are the better for your rest?’ she asked. ‘At least I see that, though wounded, you have contrived to pay me the compliment of wearing fresh linen and a clean pair of boots.’

This was awkward, and–what was worse–she said it awkwardly, with a sprightliness, gracious yet affected, that did not become her at all. She meant, of course, to annoy her husband, and his face showed that she had succeeded. He turned away to the fire with a sulky frown, while she stood smiling, holding out a hand to me.

I touched it respectfully, and let it drop. ‘The credit,’ said I, ‘belongs all to your servant Pascoe.’

‘And here he is,’ she took me up gaily, as Pascoe appeared in the doorway. ‘Is dinner ready?’

‘To be served at once, my lady.’

‘Then will you lead me to my seat, Captain Medhope? Yours is beside me, on the right; yes, close there. My husband, at his end, can enjoy the fire.’

We took our seats. I was hungry, and the dinner good. I ate of everything, but can only recall an excellent grill of salmon and a roast haunch of venison: the reason being that Lady Glynn kept me in continued talk. Poor lady!–I had almost said, poor child!–for her desperate artlessness became the more apparent to me the more she persisted. Even I, who, as the reader has been told, have the smallest skill in the ways of women, could see that here was one, of high breeding but untutored, playing at a game at once above and beneath her; almost as far above her achieving as it lay beneath her true contempt. She knew that women can inveigle men; but in the practice of it I am very sure that her dairymaid could have given her lessons.