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for without consulting you. I take no part in the play to-night.'

'Forgive my momentary doubt!'

'Somebody else will play for me--an actress from London. But on no
account must the substitution be known beforehand or the performance
to-night will never come off: and that I should much regret.'

'Captain De Stancy will not play his part if he knows you will not play
yours--that's what you mean?'

'You may suppose it is,' she said, smiling. 'And to guard against this
you must help me to keep the secret by being my confederate.'

To be Paula's confederate; to-day, indeed, time had brought him
something worth waiting for. 'In anything!' cried Somerset.

'Only in this!' said she, with soft severity. 'And you know what you
have promised, George! And you remember there is to be no--what we
talked about! Now will you go in the one-horse brougham to Markton
Station this afternoon, and meet the four o'clock train? Inquire for a
lady for Stancy Castle--a Miss Bell; see her safely into the carriage,
and send her straight on here. I am particularly anxious that she should
not enter the town, for I think she once came to Markton in a starring
company, and she might be recognized, and my plan be defeated.'

Thus she instructed her lover and devoted friend; and when he could stay
no longer he left her in the garden to return to his studio. As Somerset
went in by the garden door he met a strange-looking personage coming out
by the same passage--a stranger, with the manner of a Dutchman, the face
of a smelter, and the clothes of an inhabitant of Guiana. The stranger,
whom we have already seen sitting at the back of the theatre the night
before, looked hard from Somerset to Paula, and from Paula again to
Somerset, as he stepped out. Somerset had an unpleasant conviction that
this queer gentleman had been standing for some time in the doorway
unnoticed, quizzing him and his mistress as they talked together. If so
he might have learnt a secret.

When he arrived upstairs, Somerset went to a window commanding a view
of the garden. Paula still stood in her place, and the stranger was
earnestly conversing with her. Soon they passed round the corner and
disappeared.

It was now time for him to see about starting for Markton, an
intelligible zest for circumventing the ardent and coercive captain of
artillery saving him from any unnecessary delay in the journey. He was
at the station ten minutes before the train was due; and when it d