surrender him to the Government.

"My dear!" Lady O'Moy was shocked almost beyond expression. "How you
must dislike the man to suggest that he could be such a--such a Judas."

"I do not suggest that he could be. I warn you never to run the risk of
testing him. He maybe as honest in this matter as he pretends. But if
ever Dick were to come to you for help, you must take no risk."

The phrase was a happier one than Sylvia could suppose. It was almost
the very phrase that Dick himself had used; and its reiteration by
another bore conviction to her ladyship.

"To whom then should I go?" she demanded plaintively. And Sylvia,
speaking with knowledge, remembering the promise that Tremayne had given
her, answered readily: "There is but one man whose assistance you could
safely seek. Indeed I wonder you should not have thought of him in
the first instance, since he is your own, as well as Dick's lifelong
friend."

"Ned Tremayne?" Her ladyship fell into thought. "Do you know, I am
a little afraid of Ned. He is so very sober and cold. You do mean
Ned--don't you?"

"Whom else should I mean?"

"But what could he do?"

"My dear, how should I know? But at least I know--for I think I can be
sure of this--that he will not lack the will to help you; and to have
the will, in a man like Captain Tremayne, is to find a way."

The confident, almost respectful, tone in which she spoke arrested her
ladyship's attention. It promptly sent her off at a tangent:

"You like Ned, don't you, dear?"

"I think everybody likes him." Sylvia's voice was now studiously cold.

"Yes; but I don't mean quite in that way." And then before the subject
could be further pursued the carriage rolled to a standstill in a flood
of light from gaping portals, scattering a mob of curious sight-seers
intersprinkled with chairmen, footmen, linkmen and all the valetaille
that hovers about the functions of the great world.

The carriage door was flung open and the steps let down. A brace of
footmen, plump as capons, in gorgeous liveries, bowed powdered heads and
proffered scarlet arms to assist the ladies to alight.

Above in the crowded, spacious, colonnaded vestibule at the foot of the
great staircase they were met-by Captain Tremayne, who had just arrived
with Major Carruthers, both resplendent in full dress, and Captain
Marcus Glennie of the Telemachus in blue and gold. Together they
ascended the great staircase, lined with chatting groups, and ablaze
wi