e playing over wall and ceiling.
Why he had not already found the case where I had placed it on the
gilded French table I could not understand, and I stole to the door and
looked in. The French table stood empty save for a vase of shadowy
flowers; Sir Peter was on his knees, candle in hand, searching the
endless lines of book-shelves in the library. A strange suspicion stole
into my heart which set it drumming on my ribs. Had Elsin Grey removed
the pistols? Had she wit enough to understand the matters threatening?

I looked up at the stairs again, then mounted them noiselessly, and
traversed the carpeted passage to her door. There was a faint light
glimmering under the sill. I laid my face against the panels and
whispered, "Elsin!"

"Who is there?" A movement from within, a creak from the bed, a rustle
of a garment, then silence. Listening there, ear to her door, I heard
distinctly the steady breathing of some one also listening on the other
side.

"Elsin!"

"Is it you, Carus?"

She opened the door wide and stood there, candle in one hand, rubbing
her eyes with the other, lace night-cap and flowing, beribboned robe
stirring in the draft of air from the dark hallway. But under the
loosened neck-cloth I caught a gleam of a metal button, and instantly I
was aware of a pretense somewhere, for beneath the flowing polonaise of
chintz, or Levete, which is a kind of gown and petticoat tied on the
left hip with a sash of lace, she was fully dressed, aye, and shod for
the street.

Instinctively I glanced at the bed, made a quick step past her, and
drew the damask curtain. The bed had not been slept in.

"What are you thinking of, Carus?" she said hotly, springing to the
curtain. There was a sharp sound of cloth tearing; she stumbled, caught
my arm, and straightened up, red as fire, for the hem of her Levete was
laid open to the knee, and displayed a foot-mantle, under which a tiny
golden spur flashed on a lacquered boot-heel.

"What does this mean?" I said sternly. "Whither do you ride at such an
hour?"

She was speechless.

"Elsin! Elsin! If you had wit enough to hide Sir Peter's pistols,
render them to me now. Delay may mean my ruin."

She stood at bay, eying me, uncertain but defiant.

"Where are they?" I urged impatiently.

"He shall not fight that man!" she muttered. "If I am the cause of this
quarrel I shall end it, too. What if he were killed by Walter Butler?"

"The pistols are beneath your mattress!" I