open the book, please, at the title-page."

"I see nothing. It has neither book-plate nor owner's signature."
(Indeed Ruth never wrote her name in her books. She looked upon them as
her lord's, and hers only in trust.)

"The title-page, I said. You are staring at the flyleaf."

"Ah, to be sure--" Lady Caroline turned a leaf. "Is this what you
mean?" She held up a loose sheet of paper covered with writing.

"Read it."

The elder lady found the range of her eyeglass and conned--in silence
and without well grasping its purport--the following effusion:--

Other maids make Love a foeman,
Lie in ambush to defeat him;
I alone will step to meet him
Valiant, his accepted woman.
Equal, consort in his car,
Ride I to his royal war.

Victims of his bow and targe,
Yet who toyed with lovers' quarrels,
Envy me my braver laurels!
Lord! thy shield of shadow large
Lift above me, shout the charge!

"Well?"

"I make nothing of it," owned Lady Caroline. "It appears to be poetry
of a sort--probably some translation from the Latin author."

"You note, at least, that the handwriting is a woman's?"

"H'm, yes," Lady Caroline agreed.

"Nothing else?"

"Dear, you speak in riddles."

"It _is_ a riddle," said Diana. "Take the first letter of each line,
and read them down, in order."

"O, L, I, V, E, R V, Y, E, L, L," spelled Lady Caroline, and lowered
her eyeglass. "My dear, as you say, this cannot be a mere coincidence."

"_Did_ I say that?" asked Diana.

"But who can it be, or have been? . . . That Dance woman, perhaps?
She was infatuated enough."

"It was not she," said Diana positively.

"_Somebody_ can tell us. . . . That Mr. Silk, for instance."

"Ah, you too think of him?"

"As a clergyman--and to some extent a boon companion of Oliver's--he
would be likely to know--"

"--And to tell? You are quite right, mamma: I have asked him."

Chapter XI.

THE ESPIAL.

Ruth Josselin came down from the mountain to the stream-side, where, by
a hickory bush under a knoll, her mare Madcap stood at tether.
Slipping behind the bush--though no living soul was near to spy on her--
she slid off her short skirt and indued a longer one more suitable for
riding; rolled the discarded garment into a bundle which she strapped
behind the saddle; untethered the mare, and mounted.

At her feet the plain stretched for miles, carpeted for the mos