could trust, and when I said the only man I
could trust was red-headed Paddy out yonder, he was delighted to think
I was to leave them in his custody. But you can see for yourself I did
nothing of the kind, and if your people thought they could get
anything out of Paddy by bad language and heroic kicks they were
mistaken."

At that moment we had an interruption that brought our conversation to
a standstill and Lady Mary to the door, outside which her mother was
crying,--

"Mary, Mary! where's the key?"

"Where should it be?" said Lady Mary, "but in the door."

"It is not in the door," said the Countess wrathfully, shaking it as
if she would tear it down.

"It is in the door," said Lady Mary positively; and quite right she
was, for both of us were looking at it.

"It is not in the door," shouted her mother. "Some of the servants
have taken it away."

Then we heard her calling over the banisters to find out who had taken
away the key of Lady Mary's room. There was a twinkle in Mary's eye,
and a quiver in the corners of her pretty mouth that made me feel she
would burst out laughing, and indeed I had some ado to keep silence
myself.

"What have you done with those two poor wretches you were maltreating
out in the garden?" asked Lady Mary.

"Oh, don't speak of them," cried the Countess, evidently in no good
humour. "It was all a scandal for nothing. The red-headed beast did
not have the papers. That little fool, Chord, has misled both your
father and me. I could wring his neck for him, and now he is
palavering your father in the library and saying he will get the
papers himself or die in the attempt. It serves us right for paying
attention to a babbling idiot like him. I said in the first place that
that Irish baboon of an O'Ruddy was not likely to give them to the ape
that follows him."

"Tare-an-ounds!" I cried, clenching my fists and making for the door;
but Lady Mary rattled it so I could not be heard, and the next instant
she placed her snow-flake hand across my mouth, which was as pleasant
a way of stopping an injudicious utterance as ever I had been
acquainted with.

"Mary," said the Countess, "your father is very much agitated and
disappointed, so I'm taking him out for a drive. I have told the
butler to look out for the key, and when he finds it he will let you
out. You've only yourself to blame for being locked in, because we
expected the baboon himself and couldn't trust you in his presence."

I