'I am not coming! I, Lord Baxby, despise ye and
all your wanton tribe!' she hissed through the opening; and then
crept upstairs, as firmly rooted in Royalist principles as any man
in the Castle.
Her husband still slept the sleep of the weary, well-fed, and well-
drunken, if not of the just; and Lady Baxby quickly disrobed herself
without assistance--being, indeed, supposed by her woman to have
retired to rest long ago. Before lying down, she noiselessly locked
the door and placed the key under her pillow. More than that, she
got a staylace, and, creeping up to her lord, in great stealth tied
the lace in a tight knot to one of his long locks of hair, attaching
the other end of the lace to the bedpost; for, being tired herself
now, she feared she might sleep heavily; and, if her husband should
wake, this would be a delicate hint that she had discovered all.
It is added that, to make assurance trebly sure, her gentle
ladyship, when she had lain down to rest, held her lord's hand in
her own during the whole of the night. But this is old-wives'
gossip, and not corroborated. What Lord Baxby thought and said when
he awoke the next morning, and found himself so strangely tethered,
is likewise only matter of conjecture; though there is no reason to
suppose that his rage was great. The extent of his culpability as
regards the intrigue was this much; that, while halting at a cross-
road near Sherton that day, he had flirted with a pretty young
woman, who seemed nothing loth, and had invited her to the Castle
terrace after dark--an invitation which he quite forgot on his
arrival home.
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