cult to catch his meaning?"

"Blunders and blunders and quixotic scruples," raved Ronador, "and now
this crowning indignity to-night! What has Themar been doing? . . .
What have you done? . . . Why is Granberry still alive? Hereafter,
Tregar, Themar will report to me. I personally will see that the thing
is cleared up and silenced forever. I may trust at least to your
silence?"

"My word as a gentleman is sufficient?"

"It is."

"Consider me pledged to silence as I have been for a quarter of a
century."

"Where is Themar?"

"He is here at my command to-night after an illness of weeks. He has
been Granberry's prisoner. His illness alone won his release for him
through some inconsistent whim of sympathy on the part of Granberry.
He wears the garb of a gray monk."

"Send him here."

The Baron bowed and withdrew. At the path he turned.

"Ronador," he said quietly, "for the sake of the lifetime friendship I
have borne your father, for the sake of the position of honor and trust
I hold in your father's court, for the sake of my great love for
Houdania, let me say that when you find you are sinking deeper and
deeper into a pitfall of errors and unhappiness and treachery, I shall
be ready and willing to aid and advise you as best I may. I think I
know you better than you know yourself. You have an inheritance of
wild passion, a nature that swayed by irresistible and fiery impulse,
will for the moment dare anything and regret it with terrible suffering
ever after. One such lesson you have had in early manhood. I hope you
may not rush on blindly to another. Until you come to me, however," he
added with dignity, "I shall not meddle again."

"I shall not come!" said Ronador imperiously. But the Baron was gone.

Later, by the cypress pool, the gray monk and the minstrel talked long
and earnestly of one who knew overmuch of the affairs of both.

"There is but one thing more," faltered Themar at the end. "I may
speak with freedom?"

"Yes," said Ronador impatiently, "what is it?"

"Miss Westfall--I spied upon her camp in Connecticut--"

"Yes?"

"It is well to know all. For days she lived with Poynter in the
forest--"

Ronador's eyes blazed.

"Go, go!" he cried, his face quite colorless, "for the love of God go
before I kill you! I--I can not bear any more to-night."

Who had scored! For Ronador, at least, in the guileful hands of a
traitor who by reason of a strong maternal sympathy desired t