ld like to see you later in the day. I shall come here, I think."

"Yes; it is quiet here. Well, let me walk with you as far as the end of
the cliff."

And lighting their cigars the two men struck across the field, Geoffrey
having ordered old Reynolds to go to bed.

Mrs. Oswald Carey waited till the old man had left the kitchen and
retired. Then she came from her hiding-place and at one glance saw what
she wanted--the list of conspirators, which Geoffrey had laid open on
the table. Her keen sense of hearing had followed this paper as if it
were visible to her eyes, and she knew that it had not been returned to
Dacre. With a firm hand she seized the document, and the next moment she
had left the room, closing the two doors behind her. She kept close to
the wall as she circled the lodge to the lower path, and then she
started on a rapid walk for Ripon House.

As Geoffrey returned he was thinking of the list, and he looked for it,
with something of alarm at its absence. When he realized that it was
gone he walked through the kitchen and called up Reynolds.

"Were you in the room since I went out?" he asked.

"No, my lord."

"Is there any one else in the house?"

"No, my lord."

"Has there been any one else here to-night?"

The old man hesitated before he answered this time.

"No, my lord; no one has been here."

Geoffrey had not the slightest reason to doubt the faithful old man, but
had asked the questions for reassurance. As he retired for the night, or
rather morning, he said to himself that Dacre had no doubt taken the
document, which was too precious and too dangerous to be left in any
other hands.

CHAPTER VII.

A FOUR-IN-HAND AND ONE IN THE BUSH.

The four-in-hand which was drawn up in front of the great terrace of
Ripon House the next morning reflected much credit upon Mr. Jawkins's
_savoir faire_. The new harness glistened in the sunlight of the bright
November morning; the grooms, in the nattiest of coats and the whitest
and tightest of breeches, were standing at the horses' heads; and the
horses themselves, beautifully matched, clean-limbed and glossy, were
fresh from a toilet as carefully made as that of a professional beauty,
or even Mrs. Oswald Carey's own. And that lady stood on the threshold of
the Doric portal, her clinging driving-dress seeming loath to hide the
grand curves of her figure, and her violet eyes drinking in the day. As
she stood there, she seemed anything but the f