as
recovering."

"They told you false," answered Rotherby. "So now--those papers!"

Mr. Caryll relinquished them. "Take them," he said. "Since that is
so--take them."

Rotherby received them himself. "Remove his sword," he bade a footman.

Mr. Caryll looked sharply round at him. "My sword?" quoth he. "What do
you mean by that? What right?"

"We mean to keep you by us, sir," said Mr. Green on his other side,
"until you have explained what you were doing with those papers--what is
your interest in them."

Meanwhile a servant had done his lordship's bidding, and Mr. Caryll
stood weaponless amid his enemies. He mastered himself at once. Here it
was plain that he must walk with caution, for the ground, he perceived,
was of a sudden grown most insecure and treacherous. Rotherby and Green
in league! It gave him matter for much thought.

"There's not the need to hold me," said he quietly. "I am not likely to
tire myself by violence. There's scarcely necessity for so much."

Rotherby looked up sharply. The cool, self-possessed tone had an
intimidating note. But Mr. Green laughed maliciously, as he continued
to mop his still watering eyes. He was acquainted with Mr. Caryll's
methods, and knew that, probably, the more at ease he seemed, the less
at ease he was.

Rotherby spread the letters on the desk, and scanned them with a glowing
eye, Mr. Green at his elbow reading with him. The countess swept forward
that she, too, might inspect this find.

"They'll serve their turn," said her son, and added to Caryll: "And
they'll help to hang you."

"No doubt you find me mentioned in them," said Mr. Caryll.

"Ay, sir," snapped Green, "if not by name, at least as the messenger
who is to explain that which the writers--the royal writer and the
other--have out of prudence seen fit to exclude."

Hortensia looked up and across the room at that, a wild fear clutching
at her heart. But Mr. Caryll laughed pleasantly, eyebrows raised as
if in mild surprise. "The most excellent relations appear to prevail
between you," said he, looking from Rotherby to Green. "Are you, too, my
lord, in the secretary's pay."

His lordship flushed darkly. "You'll clown it to the end," he sneered.

"And that's none so far off," snarled Mr. Green, who since the peppering
of his eyes, had flung aside his usual cherubic air. "Oh, you may sneer,
sir," he mocked the prisoner. "But we have you fast. This letter was
brought hither by you, and this one was to