his long surcoat, De Vac stepped out into the darkness of the alley and
hastened toward the dock.

Beneath the planks. he found a skiff which he had moored there earlier in
the evening, and underneath one of the thwarts he hid the bundle. Then,
casting off, he rowed slowly up the Thames until, below the palace walls,
he moored near to the little postern gate which let into the lower end of
the garden.

Hiding the skiff as best he could in some tangled bushes which grew to the
water's edge, set there by order of the King to add to the beauty of the
aspect from the river side, De Vac crept warily to the postern and,
unchallenged, entered and sought his apartments in the palace.

The next day, he returned the original key to Brus, telling the old man
that he had not used it after all, since mature reflection had convinced
him of the folly of his contemplated adventure, especially in one whose
youth was past, and in whose joints the night damp of the Thames might find
lodgement for rheumatism.

"Ha, Sir Jules," laughed the old gardener, "Virtue and Vice be twin sisters
who come running to do the bidding of the same father, Desire. Were there
no desire there would be no virtue, and because one man desires what
another does not, who shall say whether the child of his desire be vice or
virtue ? Or on the other hand if my friend desires his own wife and if
that be virtue, then if I also desire his wife, is not that likewise
virtue, since we desire the same thing ? But if to obtain our desire it be
necessary to expose our joints to the Thames' fog, then it were virtue to
remain at home."