letters that you have been receiving will have
told you, perhaps, something of how his majesty's affairs are speeding
here?"

"Very little; and from that little I fear that they speed none too well.
I would counsel your lordship," he continued slowly--he was thinking
as he went--"to wait a while before you burn your boats. From what I
gather, matters are in the air just now."

The earl made a gesture, brusque and impatient. "Your information is
very scant, then," said he.

Mr. Caryll looked askance at him.

"Pho, sir! While you have been abed, I have been up and doing; up and
doing. Matters are being pushed forward rapidly. I have seen Atterbury.
He knows my mind. There lately came an agent from the king, it seems, to
enjoin the bishop to abandon this conspiracy, telling him that the time
was not yet ripe. Atterbury scorns to act upon that order. He will work
in the king's interests against the king's own commands even."

"Then, 'tis possible he may work to his own undoing," said Mr. Caryll,
to whom this was, after all, no news.

"Nay, nay; you have been sick; you do not know how things have sped
in this past month. Atterbury holds, and he is right, I dare swear--he
holds that never will there be such another opportunity. The finances
of the country are still in chaos, in spite of all Walpole's efforts
and fine promises. The South Sea bubble has sapped the confidence in the
government of all men of weight. The very Whigs themselves are shaken.
'Tis to King James, England begins to look for salvation from this
topsy-turveydom. The tide runs strongly in our favor. Strongly, sir!
If we stay for the ebb, we may stay for good; for there may never be
another flow within our lifetime."

"Your lordship is grown strangely hot upon this question," said Caryll,
very full of wonder.

As he understood Ostermore, the earl was scarcely the sentimentalist
to give way to such a passion of loyalty for a weaker side. Yet his
lordship had spoken, not with the cold calm of the practical man who
seeks advantage, but with all the fervor of the enthusiast.

"Such is my interest," answered his lordship. "Even as the fortunes of
the country are beggared by the South Sea Company, so are my own; even
as the country must look to King James for its salvation, so must I. At
best 'tis but a forlorn hope, I confess; yet 'tis the only hope I see."

Mr. Caryll looked at him, smiled to himself, and nodded. So! All this
fire and enthusiasm was