tage with all convenient
speed? The only weapon of an ill-used lover (nay, I will not argue the
merits of the case again) was ready to my hand.

Yet my impatience availed little; for there, on the seat that stood by
the door, sat my good friend the Vicar, discoursing in pleasant leisure
with the lady who named herself Cydaria.

"It is true," he was saying. "I fear it is true, though you're over
young to have learnt it."

"There are schools, sir," she returned, with a smile that had (or so it
seemed to me) a touch--no more--of bitterness in it, "where such lessons
are early learnt."

"They are best let alone, those schools," said he.

"And what's the lesson?" I asked, drawing nearer.

Neither answered. The Vicar rested his hands on the ball of his cane,
and suddenly began to relate old Betty Nasroth's prophecy to his
companion. I cannot tell what led his thoughts to it, but it was never
far from his mind when I was by. She listened with attention, smiling
brightly in whimsical amusement when the fateful words, pronounced with
due solemnity, left the Vicar's lips.

"It is a strange saying," he ended, "of which time alone can show the
truth."

She glanced at me with merry eyes, yet with a new air of interest. It is
strange the hold these superstitions have on all of us; though surely
future ages will outgrow such childishness.

"I don't know what the prophecy means," said she; "yet one thing at
least would seem needful for its fulfilment--that Mr Dale should become
acquainted with the King."

"True!" cried the Vicar eagerly. "Everything stands on that, and on that
we stick. For Simon cannot love where the King loves, nor know what the
King hides, nor drink of the King's cup, if he abide all his days here
in Hatchstead. Come, Simon, the plague is gone!"

"Should I then be gone too?" I asked. "But to what end? I have no
friends in London who would bring me to the notice of the King."

The Vicar shook his head sadly. I had no such friends, and the King had
proved before now that he could forget many a better friend to the
throne than my dear father's open mind had made of him.

"We must wait, we must wait still," said the Vicar. "Time will find a
friend."

Cydaria had become pensive for a moment, but she looked up now, smiling
again, and said to me:

"You'll soon have a friend in London."

Thinking of Barbara, I answered gloomily, "She's no friend of mine."

"I did not mean whom you mean," said Cydaria,