er lips were
half-parted. She stepped uncertainly back; a reaction swept over her;
the most trivial thoughts came to mind. She remembered that she had not
locked the door of her boudoir; that Sir Charles had told her to do so.
She almost started to obey; but laughed nervously instead. How absurd!
What, however, should she do? She looked toward the next room. Go to
bed? It seemed the commonplace, natural conclusion, and, after all, life
was very commonplace. But the coat and hat she had brought there?
Consideration of them, also, came within the scope of the commonplace.

It did not take her long to dispose of them, not on the rack, however.
Standing again, a few moments later, at the head of the stairway, in the
upper hall, she heard voices approaching. Whereupon she quickly dropped
both hat and coat on a chair near-by and fled to her room.

None too soon! From above footsteps were descending; people now passed
by; they evidently had been searching the third story. She could hear
their low, dissatisfied voices; the last persons to come she at once
recognized by their tones.

"You have made a bungling job of it," said Lord Ronsdale. There was a
suppressed fierce bitterness in his accents, which, however, in the
excitement of the moment, the girl failed to notice.

"He had made up his mind not to be taken alive, my Lord."

"Then--" The other interrupted Mr. Gillett harshly, but she failed to
catch more of his words.

"We've not lost him, my Lord," Mr. Gillett spoke again. "If he's not in
the house, he's near it, in the garden, and we have every way guarded."

"Every way guarded!" The girl drew her breath; as they disappeared, the
striking of the clock caused her to start. One! two! About four hours of
darkness, hardly that long remained for him! And yet she would have
supposed it later; it had been after one o'clock when she had come to
her room.

She became aware of a throbbing in her head, a dull pain, and
mechanically seating herself near one of the tables, she put up her hand
and started to draw the pins from her hair, but soon desisted. Again she
began to think, more clearly this time, more poignantly, of all she had
experienced--listened to--that night!

She, a Wray, sprung from a long line of proud, illustrious folk! And he?
The breath of the roses outside was wafted upward; her eyes, deep,
self-scoffing, rested, without seeing, on a small dark object on a
handkerchief on the table. What was it to her if