the whip took
place, and how, when he reached Welland House an hour later, he had found
no Viviette there. Running thus from incident to incident he increased
his suspicions without being able to cull from the circumstances anything
amounting to evidence; but evidence he now determined to acquire without
saying a word to any one.

His plan was of a cruel kind: to set a trap into which the pair would
blindly walk if any secret understanding existed between them of the
nature he suspected.

XXX

Louis began his stratagem by calling at the tower one afternoon, as if on
the impulse of the moment.

After a friendly chat with Swithin, whom he found there (having watched
him enter), Louis invited the young man to dine the same evening at the
House, that he might have an opportunity of showing him some interesting
old scientific works in folio, which, according to Louis's account, he
had stumbled on in the library. Louis set no great bait for St. Cleeve
in this statement, for old science was not old art which, having
perfected itself, has died and left its secret hidden in its remains. But
Swithin was a responsive fellow, and readily agreed to come; being,
moreover, always glad of a chance of meeting Viviette en famille. He
hoped to tell her of a scheme that had lately suggested itself to him as
likely to benefit them both: that he should go away for a while, and
endeavour to raise sufficient funds to visit the great observatories of
Europe, with an eye to a post in one of them. Hitherto the only bar to
the plan had been the exceeding narrowness of his income, which, though
sufficient for his present life, was absolutely inadequate to the
requirements of a travelling astronomer.

Meanwhile Louis Glanville had returned to the House and told his sister
in the most innocent manner that he had been in the company of St. Cleeve
that afternoon, getting a few wrinkles on astronomy; that they had grown
so friendly over the fascinating subject as to leave him no alternative
but to invite St. Cleeve to dine at Welland the same evening, with a view
to certain researches in the library afterwards.

'I could quite make allowances for any youthful errors into which he may
have been betrayed,' Louis continued sententiously, 'since, for a
scientist, he is really admirable. No doubt the Bishop's caution will
not be lost upon him; and as for his birth and connexions,--those he
can't help.'

Lady Constantine showed such alac