They met no one, however, until they were come to the outskirts of the
town. But then as they passed the mouth of an alley a man came suddenly
out and as suddenly drew back. The morning was chill, and the man was
closely wrapped.
Wogan could not distinguish his face or person, and looking down the
alley he saw at the end of it only a garden wall, and over the top of
the wall a thicket of trees and the chimney-tops of a low house
embosomed amongst them. He rode on, secure in the secrecy of his
desperate adventure. But that same morning Mr. Whittington paid a visit
to Wogan's lodging and asked to be admitted. He was told that Mr. Wogan
had not yet returned to Bologna.
"So, indeed, I thought," said he; and he sauntered carelessly along, not
to his own house, but to one smaller, situated at the bottom of a
cul-de-sac and secluded amongst trees. At the door he asked whether
her Ladyship was yet visible, and was at once shown into a room with
long windows which stood open to the garden. Her Ladyship lay upon a
sofa sipping her coffee and teasing a spaniel with the toe of her
slipper.
"You are early," she said with some surprise.
"And yet no earlier than your Ladyship," said Whittington.
"I have to make my obeisance to my King," said she, stifling a yawn.
"Could one, I ask you, sleep on so important a day?"
Mr. Whittington laughed genially. Then he opened the door and glanced
along the passage. When he turned back into the room her Ladyship had
kicked the spaniel from the sofa and was sitting bolt upright with all
her languor gone.
"Well?" she asked quickly.
Whittington took a seat on the sofa by her side.
"Charles Wogan left Bologna at daybreak. Moreover, I have had a message
from the Chevalier bidding me not to mention that I saw him in Bologna
yesterday. One could hazard a guess at the goal of so secret a journey."
"Ohlau!" exclaimed the lady, in a whisper. Then she nestled back upon
the sofa and bit the fragment of lace she called her handkerchief.
"So there's an end of Mr. Wogan," she said pleasantly.
Whittington made no answer.
"For there's no chance that he'll succeed," she continued with a touch
of anxiety in her voice.
Whittington neither agreed nor contradicted. He asked a question
instead.
"What is the sharpest spur a man can know? What is it that gives a man
audacity to attempt and wit to accomplish the impossible?"