t madman's example!'"

Mrs. Bowmore was shocked. "Did he really call my husband a madman?" she
asked.

"He did, indeed, ma'am--and he was in earnest about it, too. 'If you
value your liberty,' he says to Mr. Linwood; 'if you hope to become
Charlotte's husband, consult your own safety. I can give you a passport.
Escape to France and wait till this trouble is over.' Mr. Linwood was
not in the best of tempers--Mr. Linwood shook him off. 'Charlotte's
father will soon be my father,' says he, 'do you think I will desert
him? My friends at the Club have taken up my claim; do you think I will
forsake them at the meeting to-morrow? You ask me to be unworthy of
Charlotte, and unworthy of my friends--you insult me, if you say more.'
He whipped round on his heel, and followed my master."

"And what did the Captain do?"

"Lifted up his hands, ma'am, to the heavens, and looked--I declare it
turned my blood to see him. If there's truth in mortal man, it's my firm
belief--"

What the housemaid's belief was, remained unexpressed. Before she could
get to her next word, a shriek of horror from the hall announced that
the cook's powers of interruption were not exhausted yet.

Mistress and servant both hurried out in terror of they knew not what.
There stood the cook, alone in the hall, confronting the stand on which
the overcoats and hats of the men of the family were placed.

"Where's the master's traveling coat?" cried the cook, staring wildly at
an unoccupied peg. "And where's his cap to match! Oh Lord, he's off in
the post-chaise! and the footman's after him!"

Simpleton as she was, the woman had blundered on a very serious
discovery.

Coat and cap--both made after a foreign pattern, and both strikingly
remarkable in form and color to English eyes--had unquestionably
disappeared. It was equally certain that they were well known to the
foot man, whom the Captain had declared to be a spy, as the coat and cap
which his master used in traveling. Had Mr. Bowmore discovered (since
the afternoon) that he was really in danger? Had the necessities of
instant flight only allowed him time enough to snatch his coat and cap
out of the hall? And had the treacherous manservant seen him as he was
making his escape to the post-chaise? The cook's conclusions answered
all these questions in the affirmative--and, if Captain Bervie's words
of warning had been correctly reported, the cook's conclusion for once
was not to be despised.

Under thi