e Stuart supporters are plotting a rising. Proof of that should be of
value to Lord Carteret, of sufficient value to the government to warrant
the payment of the paltry price I ask--that the impeachment against my
father for his dealings with the South Sea Company shall not be allowed.

"But it might involve the worse betrayal of your father, Charles, and if
he were to live--"

"'Sdeath, mother, why must you harp on that? I a'n't the fool you think
me," he cried. "I shall make it a further condition that my father have
immunity. There will be no lack of victims once the plot is disclosed;
and they may begin upon that coxcomb Caryll--the damned meddler who is
at the bottom of all this garboil."

She sat bemused, her eyes upon the sunlit gardens below, where a faint
breeze was stirring the shrub tops.

"There is," she said presently, "a secret drawer somewhere in his desk.
If he has papers they will, no doubt, be there. Had you not best be
making search for them?"

He smiled darkly. "I have seen to that already," he replied.

"How?" excitedly. "You have got the papers?"

"No; but I have set an experienced hand to find them, and one, moreover,
who has the right by virtue of his warrant--the messenger of the
secretary of state."

She sat up, rigid. "'Sdeath! What is't ye mean?"

"No need for alarm," he reassured her. "This fellow Green is in my pay,
as well as in the secretary's, and it will profit him most to keep faith
with me. He's a self-seeking dog, content to run with the hare and hunt
with the hounds, so that there be profit in it, and he'd sacrifice his
ears to bring Mr. Caryll to the gallows. I have promised him that and a
thousand pounds if we save the estates from confiscation."

She looked at him, between wonder and fear. "Can ye trust him?" she
asked breathlessly.

He laughed softly and confidently. "I can trust him to earn a thousand
pounds," he answered. "When he heard of the impeachment, he used such
influence as he has to be entrusted with the arrest of his lordship;
and having obtained his warrant, he came first to me to tell me of it. A
thousand pounds is the price of him, body and soul. I bade him seek not
only evidence of my lord's having received that plaguey stock, but also
papers relating to this Jacobite plot into which his lordship has been
drawn by our friend Caryll. He is at his work at present. And I shall
hear from him when it is accomplished."

She nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "Y