ible crime."

"You can suggest a motive for the crime?" interposed Sir Marmaduke,
striving to sneer, although his voice sounded quite toneless, for his
throat was parched and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, "by
Gad! 'twere vastly interesting to hear your ladyship's views."

He tried to speak flippantly, at which Squire Boatfield frowned
deprecation. Lambert, without a word, had brought a chair near to Lady
Sue, and with a certain gentle authority, he forced her to sit down.

"It was a crime, of that I feel sure," said Sue, "nathless, that can be
easily proven ... when ... when it has been discovered whether money and
securities contained in a wallet of leather have been found among Prince
Amede's effects."

"Money and securities?" ejaculated Sir Marmaduke with a loud oath, which
he contrived to bring forth with the violence of genuine wrath, "Money
and securities? ... Forsooth, I trust ..."

"My money and my securities, sir," she interposed with obvious hauteur,
"which I had last night and in this self-same room placed in the hands
of Prince Amede d'Orleans, my husband."

She said this with conscious pride. Whatever change her feelings may
have undergone towards the man who had at one time been the embodiment
of her most cherished dreams, she would not let her sneering guardian
see that she had repented of her choice.

Death had endowed her exiled prince with a dignity which had never been
his in life, and the veil of tragedy which now lay over the mysterious
stranger and his still more mysterious life, had called forth to its
uttermost the young wife's sense of loyalty to him.

"Not your entire fortune, my dear, dear child, I hope ..." ejaculated
Squire Boatfield, more horror-struck this time than he had been when
first he had heard of the terrible murder.

"The wallet contained my entire fortune," rejoined Sue calmly, "all that
Master Skyffington had placed in my hands on the day that my father
willed that it should be given me."

"Such folly is nothing short of criminal," said Sir Marmaduke roughly,
"nathless, had not the gentleman been murdered that night he would have
shown Thanet and you a clean pair of heels, taking your money with him,
of course."

"Aye! aye! but he was murdered," said Squire Boatfield firmly, "the
question only is by whom?"

"Some footpad who haunts the cliffs," rejoined de Chavasse lightly,
"'tis simple enough."

"Simple, mayhap ..." mused the squire, "yet ..."

He