opened from
within by Richard Lambert who, seeing the two gentlemen standing on the
threshold, stepped back immediately, allowing them to pass.

The old Quakeress and Richard were seemingly not alone. Two ladies sat
in those same straight-backed chairs, wherein, some fifty hours ago Adam
Lambert and the French prince had agreed upon that fateful meeting on
the brow of the cliff.

Sir Marmaduke's restless eyes took in at a glance every detail of that
little parlor, which he had known so intimately. The low lintel of the
door, which had always forced him to stoop as he entered, the central
table with the pewter candlesticks upon it, the elm chairs shining like
mirrors in response to the Quakeress' maddening passion for cleanliness.

Everything was just as it had been those few hours ago, when last he had
picked up his broad-brimmed hat from the table and walked out of the
cottage into the night. Everything was the same as it had been when his
young girl-wife pushed a leather wallet across the table to him: the
wallet which contained the fortune that he had not yet dared to turn
fully to his own account.

Aye! it was all just the same: for even at this moment as he stood there
in the room, Sue, pale and still, faced him from across the table. For a
moment he was silent, nor did anybody speak. Squire Boatfield felt
unaccountably embarrassed, certain that he was intruding, vaguely
wondering why the atmosphere in the cottage was so heavy and
oppressive.

Behind him, Richard Lambert had quietly closed the front door; the old
woman stood in the background; the dusting-cloth which she had been
plying so vigorously had dropped out of her hand when the two gentlemen
had appeared in her little parlor so unexpectedly.

Sir Marmaduke was the first to break the silence.

"My dear Sue," he said curtly, "this is a strange place indeed wherein
to find your ladyship."

He cast a sharp, inquiring glance at her, then at his sister-in-law, who
was still sitting by the hearth.

"She insisted on coming," said Mistress de Chavasse with a shrug of the
shoulders, "and I had not the power to stop her; I thought it best,
therefore, to accompany her."

She was wearing the cloak and hood which Sir Marmaduke had seen round
her shoulders when awhile ago he had met her in the hall of the Court.
Apparently she had started out with Sue in his immediate wake, and now
he had a distinct recollection that while the mare was slowly ambling
along,