man's mind. The whole scheme was so strange, so daring, so
foreign to the simple ideas of the Quaker-bred lad, that its very
boldness had defied suspicion. But the slightest mischance now, a
meeting at the door of the pavilion, an altercation--face to face, eye
to eye--and Richard Lambert would be on the alert. His hatred would not
be so blind, nor yet so clumsy, as that of his brother, the blacksmith.
There is no spy so keen in all the world as a jealous lover.

This had been the prince's first meeting with Sue, since that memorable
day when the secret of their clandestine love became known to Lambert.
Sir Marmaduke knew well that it had been fraught with danger; that every
future meeting would wax more and more perilous still, and that the
secret marriage itself, however carefully and secretively planned, would
hardly escape the prying eyes of the young man.

The unmasking of Prince Amede d'Orleans before Sue had become legally
his wife was a possibility which Sir Marmaduke dared not even think of,
lest the very thought should drive him mad. Once she was his wife! ...
well, let her look to herself.... The marriage tie would be a binding
one, he would see to that, and her fortune should be his, even though he
had won her by a lie.

He had staked his very existence on the success of his scheme. Lady
Sue's fortune was the one aim of his life, for it he had worked and
striven, and lied: he would not even contemplate a future without it,
now that his plans had brought him so near the goal.

He had one faithful ally, though not a powerful one, in Editha, who,
lured by some vague promises of his, desperate too, as regarded her own
future, had chosen to throw in her lot whole-heartedly with his.

He was closeted with her on the following day, in the tiny
withdrawing-room which leads out of the hall at Acol Court. When he had
stolen into the house in the small hours of the morning he had seen
Richard Lambert leaning out of one of the windows which gave upon the
park.

It seemed as if the young man must have seen him when he skirted the
house, for though there was no moonlight, the summer's night was
singularly clear. That Lambert had been on the watch--spying, as Sir
Marmaduke said with a bitter oath of rage--was beyond a doubt.

Editha too was uneasy; she thought that Lambert had purposely avoided
her the whole morning.

"I lingered in the garden for as long as I could," she said to her
brother-in-law, watching with