he Rue du Temple!

Cecil glanced at him, and his eyes grew infinitely yearning--infinitely
gentle; a shudder shook him all through his limbs. He hesitated a
moment, then he stretched out his hand.

"Will you take it--still?"

Almost before the words were spoken, his hand was held in both of the
Seraph's.

"Take it? Before all the world--always, come what will."

His eyes were dim as he spoke, and his rich voice rang clear as the
ring of silver, though there was the tremor of emotion in it. He had
forgotten the Hebrew's presence; he had forgotten all save his friend
and his friend's extremity. Cecil did not answer; if he had done so, all
the courage, all the calm, all the control that pride and breeding alike
sustained in him, would have been shattered down to weakness; his hand
closed fast in his companion's, his eyes met his once in a look of
gratitude that pierced the heart of the other like a knife; then he
turned to the Jew with a haughty serenity.

"M. Baroni, I am ready."

"Wait!" cried Rockingham. "Where you go I come."

The Hebrew interposed demurely.

"Forgive me, my lord--not now. You can take what steps you will as
regards your friend later on; and you may rest assured he will be
treated with all delicacy compatible with the case, but you cannot
accompany him now. I rely on his word to go with me quietly; but I
now regard him, and you must remember this, as not the son of Viscount
Royallieu--not the Honorable Bertie Cecil, of the Life Guards--not the
friend of one so distinguished as yourself--but as simply an arrested
forger."

Baroni could not deny himself that last sting of his vengeance; yet, as
he saw the faces of the men on whom he flung the insult, he felt for the
moment that he might pay for his temerity with his life. He put his hand
above his eyes with a quick, involuntary movement, like a man who wards
off a blow.

"Gentlemen," and his teeth chattered as he spoke, "one sign of violence,
and I shall summon legal force."

Cecil caught the Seraph's lifted arm, and stayed it in its vengeance.
His own teeth were clinched tight as a vise, and over the haggard
whiteness of his face a deep red blush had come.

"We degrade ourselves by resistance. Let me go--they must do what they
will. My reckoning must wait, and my justification. One word only. Take
the King and keep him for my sake."

Another moment, and the door had closed; he was gone out to his fate,
and the Seraph, with no eyes on