hat, or for any such politics! The Mountclere line is
noble, and how was I to know that this member was not noble, too? As the
representative of an illustrious family I was taken with him, but as a
man--I must shun him.'

'How can you shun him? You have married him!'

'Nevertheless, I won't stay! Neither law nor gospel demands it of me
after what I have learnt. And if law and gospel did demand it, I would
not stay. And if you will not help me to escape, I go alone.'

'You had better not try any such wild thing.'

The creaking of a door was heard. 'O Sol,' she said appealingly, 'don't
go into the question whether I am right or wrong--only remember that I am
very unhappy. Do help me--I have no other person in the world to ask! Be
under the balcony at six o'clock. Say you will--I must go--say you
will!'

'I'll think,' said Sol, very much disturbed. 'There, don't cry; I'll try
to be under the balcony, at any rate. I cannot promise more, but I'll
try to be there.'

She opened in the panelling one of the old-fashioned concealed modes of
exit known as jib-doors, which it was once the custom to construct
without architraves in the walls of large apartments, so as not to
interfere with the general design of the room. Sol found himself in a
narrow passage, running down the whole length of the ball-room, and at
the same time he heard Lord Mountclere's voice within, talking to
Ethelberta. Sol's escape had been marvellous: as it was the viscount
might have seen her tears. He passed down some steps, along an area from
which he could see into a row of servants' offices, among them a kitchen
with a fireplace flaming like an altar of sacrifice. Nobody seemed to be
concerned about him; there were workmen upon the premises, and he nearly
matched them. At last he got again into the shrubberies and to the side
of the park by which he had entered.

On reaching Corvsgate he found Picotee in the parlour of the little inn,
as he had directed. Mr. Julian, she said, had walked up to the ruins,
and would be back again in a few minutes. Sol ordered the horse to be
put in, and by the time it was ready Christopher came down from the hill.
Room was made for Sol by opening the flap of the dogcart, and Christopher
drove on.

He was anxious to know the trouble, and Sol was not reluctant to share
the burden of it with one whom he believed to be a friend. He told,
scrap by scrap, the strange request of Ethelberta. Christopher,