this were the same. Had the paper indeed come from her? Had it not? If in truth it was a message from my wife, what had befallen in a few hours since our parting? If it was a forger’s lie, what trap was set, what toils were laid? I walked up and down, and tried to think it out. The strangeness of it all, the choice of a lonely and distant hut for trysting place, that pass coming from a sworn officer of the Company, certain things I had heard that day� A trap� and to walk into it with my eyes open� . An you hold me dear. As you are my knight, keep this tryst. In distress and peril� . Come what might, there was a risk I could not run.

I had no weapons to assume, no preparations to make. Gathering up the gaoler’s gold I started toward the door, opened it, and going out would have closed it softly behind me but