s cell. Presently
`William' will return to you, but it will be Angus and not Keith. You
are to scold him for having kept you such an unconscionable time, and,
declaring that you will have no more to do with him, to take up the
empty basket and walk off. Our warder will then declare that he cannot
do with all this row,--you must make as much noise as you can,--and push
you both out of the prison door. Angus will follow you, expressing
penitence and begging to be allowed to carry the basket, but you are not
to let him. A few yards from the prison, I shall come running out of a
side-street, seize the basket, give Angus a thump or two with it and bid
him be off, for I am not going to have such good-for-noughts loitering
about and making up to my sister. He will pretend to be cowed, and run
away, and you will then abuse me in no measured terms for having left
you without protector, in the first place, and for having behaved so
badly to your dear Will in the second. When we are out of sight, we may
gradually drop our pretended quarrel; and when we reach Mr Raymond's
house, you will return to Caroline Courtenay, and I shall be Ephraim
Hebblethwaite. There is the programme. Can you carry out your part?--
and are you willing?"

My heart stood still a moment, and then came up and throbbed violently
in my throat.

"Could I? Yes, I think I could. But I want to know something first.
How far I am willing will depend on circumstances. What is going to
become of Colonel Keith in this business?"

"He takes Angus's place--don't you see?"

"Yes, but when Angus has got away, how is he to escape?"

"God knoweth. It is not likely that he can."

"And do you mean to say that Colonel Keith is to be sacrificed to save
Angus?"

"The sacrifice is his own. The proposal comes from himself."

"And you mean to _let_ him?"

"Not if I could do it myself," was the quiet answer.

"I don't want you to do it. Is there nobody else?"

"No one except Keith, Raymond, and myself. Raymond is too tall, and I
am not tall enough. Keith and Angus are just of a height."

"And if Colonel Keith cannot escape, what will become of him?"

Silence answered me,--a silence which said far more than words.

"Ephraim, Colonel Keith is worth fifty of Angus."

"I have not spent these weeks at his bedside, Cary, without finding that
out."

"And is the worse to be bought with the better?"

"It was done once, upon the hill of Calvary. And `This