“I must see Lord Ostermore!” had been Mr. Caryll's wild cry, as he strode to the door.  
From the other side of it there came a sound of steps and voices. Some one was turning the handle.
 
Hortensia caught Mr. Caryll by the sleeve. “But the letters!” she cried , and to the incriminating papers which he had left, forgotten, upon the desk.
 
He stared at her a moment, and memory swept upon him in a flood. He mastered the wild that had been swaying him, thrust the paper that he was carrying into his pocket, and turned to go back for the treasonable letters.
 
“The !” he exclaimed, and pointed to the extinguished candle on the floor. “What can we do?”
 
A sharp blow fell upon the lock of the door. He stood still, looking over his shoulder.
 
“Quick! Make haste!” Hortensia him in her excitement. “Get them! them, at least! Do the best you can since we have not the means to burn them.”
 
A second blow was struck, succeeded instantly by a third, and something was heard to snap. The door swung open, and Green and Rotherby sprang into the room, a of footmen at their heels. They were followed more by the countess; whilst a little flock of servants brought up the rear, but checked upon the threshold, and hung there to witness events that held out such promise of being unusual.
 
Mr. Caryll swore through set teeth, and made a dash for the desk. But he was too late to accomplish his object. His hand had scarcely closed upon the letters, when he was, himself, seized. Rotherby and Green, on either side of him, held him in their grasp, each with one hand upon his shoulder and the other at his wrist. Thus stood he, powerless between them, and, after the first shock of it, cool and making no effort to disengage himself. His right hand was tightly upon the letters.
 
Rotherby called a servant forward. “Take those papers from the thief's hand,” he commanded.
 
“Stop!” cried Mr. Caryll. “Lord Rotherby, may I speak with you alone before you go further in a matter you will bitterly regret?”
 
“Take those papers from him,” Rotherby repeated, swearing; and the servant to the task. But Mr. Caryll suddenly the hand away from the fellow and the wrist out of Lord Rotherby's grip.
 
“A moment, my lord, as you value your honor and your possessions!” he insisted. “Let me speak with Lord Ostermore first. Take me before him.”
 
“You are before him now,” said Rotherby. “Say on!”
 
“I demand to see Lord Ostermore.”
 
“I am Lord Ostermore,” said Rotherby.
 
“You? Since when?” said Mr. Caryll, not even beginning to understand.
 
“Since ten minutes ago,” was the answer that first gave that household the news of my lord's passing.
 
There was a movement, a muttering among the servants. Old Humphries broke through the group by the door, his heavy chops white and trembling, and in that moment Hortensia turned, awe-stricken, to ask her ladyship was this true. Her ladyship nodded in silence. Hortensia cried out, and sank to a chair as if beaten down by the news, whilst the old servant, answered, too, withdrew, his hands and making foolish ; and the tears of those were the only tears that watered the grave of John Caryll, fifth Earl of Ostermore.
 
As for Mr. Caryll, the shock of that announcement seemed to cast a spell upon him. He stood still, limp and almost . Oh, the never-ceasing of things! That his father should have died at such a moment.
 
“Dead?” quoth he. “Dead? Is my lord dead? They told me he was recovering.”
 
“They told you false,” answered Rotherby. “So now—those papers!”
 
Mr. Caryll them. “Take them,” he said. “Since that is so—take them.”
 
Rotherby received them himself. “Remove his sword,” he bade a footman.
 
Mr. Caryll looked sharply round at him. “My sword?” quoth he. “What do you mean by that? What right?”
 
“We mean to keep you by us, sir,” said Mr. Green on his other side, “until you have explained what you were doing with those papers—what is your interest in them.”
 
Meanwhile a servant had done his lordship's bidding, and Mr. Caryll stood weaponless amid his enemies. He mastered himself at once. Here it was plain that he must walk with caution, for the ground, he perceived, was of a sudden grown most insecure and . Rotherby and Green in league! It gave him matter for much thought.
 
“There's not the need to hold me,” said he quietly. “I am not likely to tire myself by violence. There's scarcely necessity for so much.”
 
Rotherby looked up sharply. The cool, self-possessed tone had an note. But Mr. Green laughed , as he continued to mop his still watering eyes. He was acquainted with Mr. Caryll's methods, and knew that, probably, the more at ease he seemed, the less at ease he was.
 
Rotherby spread the letters on the desk, and scanned them with a glowing eye, Mr. Green at his elbow reading with him. The countess swept forward that she, too, might inspect this find.
 
“They'll serve their turn,” said her son, and added to Caryll: “And they'll help to hang you.”
 
“No doubt you find me mentioned in them,” said Mr. Caryll.
 
“Ay, sir,” snapped Green, “if not by name, at least as the messenger who is to explain that which the writers—the royal writer and the other—have out of seen fit to exclude.”
 
Hortensia looked up and across the room at that, a wild fear clutching at her heart. But Mr. Caryll laughed pleasantly, raised as if in mild surprise. “The most excellent relations appear to prevail between you,” said he, looking from Rotherby to Green. “Are you, too, my lord, in the secretary's pay.”
 
His lordship flushed darkly. “You'll clown it to the end,” he .
 
“And that's none so far off,” Mr. Green, who since the peppering of his eyes, had flung aside his usual cherubic air. “Oh, you may , sir,” he mocked the prisoner. “But we have you fast. This letter was brought hither by you, and this one was to have been carried hence by you.”
 
“The latter, sir, was a matter for the future, and you can hardly prove what a man will do; so we'll let that pass. As for the former—the letter which you say I brought—you'll remember that you searched me at Maidstone—”
 
“And I have your admission that the letter was upon you at the time,” roared the spy, interrupting him—“your admission in the presence of that lady, as she can be made to witness.”
 
Mistress Winthrop rose. “'Tis a lie,” she said firmly. “I can not be made to witness.”
 
Mr. Caryll smiled, and nodded across to her. “'Tis vastly kind in you, Mistress Winthrop. But the gentleman is mistook.” He turned to Green. “Harkee, sirrah did I admit that I had carried that letter?”
 
Mr. Green . “You admitted that you carried a letter. What other letter should it have been but that?”
 
“Nay,” smiled Mr. Caryll. “'Tis not for you to ask me. Rather is it for you to prove that the letter I admitted having carried and that letter are one and the same. 'Twill take a deal of proving, I dare swear.”
 
“Ye'll be forsworn, then,” put in her ladyship sourly. “For I can witness to the letter that you bore. Not only did I see it—a letter on that same fine paper—in my husband's hands on the day you came here and during your visit, but I have his lordship's own word for it that he was in the plot and that you were the go-between.”
 
“Ah!” Mr. Green. “What now, sir? What now? By what fresh piece of will you get out of that?”
 
“Ye're a fool,” said Mr. Caryll with calm contempt, and fetched out his snuff-box. “D'ye dream that one witness will suffice to establish so grave a charge? Pah!” He opened his snuff-box to find it empty, and viciously snapped down the lid again. “Pah!” he said again, “ye've cost me a whole boxfull of Burgamot.”
 
“Why did ye throw it in my face?” demanded Mr. Green. “What purpose did ye look to serve but one of treason? Answer me that!”
 
“I didn't like the way ye looked at me. 'Twas wanting respect, and I bethought me I would the of your expression. Have ye any other foolish questions for me?” And he looked again from Green to Rotherby, including both in his . “No?” He rose. “In that case, if you'll give me leave, and—”
 
“You do not leave this house,” Rotherby informed him.
 
“I think you push hospitality too far. Will you desire your to return me my sword? I have affairs elsewhere.”
 
“Mr. Caryll, I beg that you will understand,” said his lordship, with a calm that he was at some pains to maintain, “that you do not leave this house save in the care of the messengers from the secretary of state.”
 
Mr. Caryll looked at him, and yawned in his face. “Ye're tiresome,” said he, “did ye but know how I . What shall the secretary of state require of me?”
 
“He'll require you on a charge of high treason,” said Mr. Green.
 
“Have you a warrant to take me?”
 
“I have not, but—”
 
“Then how do you dare detain me, sir?” demanded Mr. Caryll sharply. “D'ye think I don't know the law?”
 
“I think you'll know a deal more of it shortly,” countered Mr. Green.
 
“Meanwhile, sirs, I depart. Offer me violence at your .” He moved a step, and then, at a sign from Rotherby, the lackey's hands fell on him again, and forced him back and down into his chair.
 
“Away with you for the warrant,” said Rotherby to Green. “We'll keep him here till you return.”
 
Mr. Green grinned at the prisoner, and was gone in great haste.
 
Mr. Caryll lounged back in his chair, and threw one leg over the other. “I have always endeavored,” said he, “to suffer fools as gladly as a should. So since you insist, I'll be patient until I have the ear of my Lord Carteret—who, I take it, is a man of sense. But if I were you, my lord, and you, my lady, I should not insist. Believe me, you'll cut poor figures. As for you, my lord, ye're in none such good odor, as it is.”
 
“Let that be,” snarled his lordship.
 
“If I mention it at all, I but do so in your lordship's own interests. It will be remembered that ye attempted to murder me once, and that will not be of any great help to such as you may bring against me. Besides which, there is the unfortunate circumstance that it's widely known ye're not a man to be believed.”
 
“Will you be silent?” roared his lordship, in a towering passion.
 
“If I trouble myself to speak at all, it is out of concern for your lordship,” Mr. Caryll insisted sweetly. “And in your own interest, and your ladyship's, too, I'd counsel you to hear me a moment without witnesses.”
 
His tone was calculatedly grave. Lord Rotherby looked at him, ; not so her ladyship. Less acquainted with his ways, the absolute confidence and unconcern of his was causing her uneasiness. A man who was entrammelled would not bear himself so easily, she opined. She rose, and crossed to her son's side.
 
“What have you to say?” she asked Mr. Caryll.
 
“Nay, madam,” he replied, “not before these.” And he indicated the servants.
 
“'Tis but a to have them out of the room,” said Rotherby.
 
Mr. Caryll laughed the notion to scorn. “If you think that—I give you my word of honor to attempt no violence, nor to depart until you shall give me leave,” said he.
 
Rotherby, judging Mr. Caryll by his knowledge of himself, still hesitated. But her ladyship realized, in spite of her detestation of the man, that he was not of the temper of those whose wor............