ll, Betty, and come
along. We'll take a coach to Lilly's."

A porter soon brought us a coach, and Betty, having explained to her
father where and why she was going, climbed in with George and me, and we
were off.

CHAPTER IX

KIDNAPPED

We found Lilly at home, eager to help us. He asked many questions
relating to my cousin's life and her friends at court, to all of which I
made full answer in so far as I knew, including an account of the king's
objectionable attentions. I suspected that the Doctor would make more use
of the knowledge he obtained from me than of that to be received from the
stars, but I did not care how he reached his conclusions if he could but
tell us how and where to find Frances.

Lilly questioned Betty also, and when he had learned all that she knew,
he left us seated in the parlor while he went to his observatory to set a
figure. In the course of ten minutes he returned and gave us the result
of his calculations, as follows:--

"I believe I can tell you where Mistress Jennings is, and how she may be
found," he said, speaking and acting as one walking in sleep. "But your
failure to tell me the exact hour of her birth lends uncertainty to my
calculations. I have all the particulars concerning the nativity of a man
whom I shall not name. I have read the stars many times for him and on
many subjects. If he is connected with the disappearance of Mistress
Jennings, you will find her at a place called Merlin House, six leagues
from Westminster and half a league from the Oxford Road."

Here his eyes began to roll and he seemed to be under a spell. He made
strange, weird passes in the air for a time, then became rigid, his face
upturned and his arms uplifted. Betty was frightened and drew close to my
side, grasping my arm.

After perhaps a minute of silence, Lilly began to speak again in low
sepulchral tones: "I see a house in the depths of a forest dark and wild.
It is surrounded by a high wall. In the east side of the wall is a double
door or gate of thick oak, which you will find locked and barred. The
house is of brick, save a tower at the southeast corner, which is of
stone three stories high. To reach the house, you must travel on the
Oxford Road a distance of six leagues and two furlongs, where you will
find a broken shrine, erected hundreds of years ago to the Blessed
Virgin. The shrine is on the left side of the road as you travel west,
one hundred paces back, on the top of a low