larmed
expression.

"Hush!" and the frown of the old man was something to remember. "They
observe as much formality as if he were in Windsor Palace."

"Well--he will be there to-day, will he not?" and Mrs. Carey looked
innocently at the banker.

He came closer and bent his broad, bare poll to her as he spoke:

"No! He will never see Windsor again."

"But the Royalists--will they not raise the King's flag to-day?" Still
the guileless surprise in her face, which had its effect on old Bugbee.

"Yes; they will strike to-day at Aldershot--and they will be defeated."

"How do you know? Have they not plenty of men?"

"Men? Men are only in the way. They have no money."

"And the King? Will he be taken?"

"He will not be there," and Mr. Bugbee drew close to the Beauty again.

"Where will he be?" she asked.

"Here--with you! You will save him by detaining him."

She sat still, and looked at him with a steady stare. She knew quite
well what purpose the old banker had in mind, and what she had come
there for. But she meant to play her own game, not Bugbee's.

Her own game was to get the old King under her own influence, whether he
went to reign in Windsor or to rust in America. She knew his character
well, and she had little doubt of her power if she could only get the
reins. From that position she knew enough, too, to overcome all scruples
of conscience in the King's conscientious banker.

Bugbee was playing against two possible results--the success of the King
or his death. Either was ruin for him. Investigation would follow,
whether George were a king or a corpse. So long as he remained in exile
the Republicans would never attempt to confiscate the private fortune of
the banished monarch; while, on the other hand, the royal exile would
not venture to appeal to the courts against his banker, thereby exposing
his enormous wealth to the cupidity of the Republicans.

"You have gone too far," said Mrs. Carey, steadily looking at the
banker; "I shall do nothing of the kind. My reputation--"

"Shall be quite safe--your husband being at Nice," and old Bugbee's was
the guileless face now.

"Humph!"

"No one else will miss you for two days."

"Ah! for two days. And then?"

"Then you go home; you have been visiting your American friends, or any
other friends out of London."

"Yes; that is all very well," Mrs. Carey said quietly. "And he--the
King?"

"He will return to America at once, leaving this house in two