e that he had turned the conversation upon Mr.
Archdale."

"When was this?"

"One morning when I was coming up from the beach, I didn't feel like
talking to anyone, and when I heard voices the other side of the great
boulder--you remember it?--I waited a moment, to see if they would pass
on, so that I need not go back to the house by the longest way; and it
was then that he said it. He was with Lord Bulchester. He was speaking
of other things first, and then I missed a few words, and then he said
this."

"So far as he was concerned," answered Mr. Royal, "that might be as
innocent a speech as ever was uttered. Indeed, don't you see that a man
who meditated mischief wouldn't make such a speech at all?"

"If the man were Mr. Edmonson he might, and to Lord Bulchester who, he
knows, never would do anything against him. But Lord Bulchester is
uncomfortable. I saw it yesterday; and perhaps wondering over that was
what made me put everything together. I don't know how it was, but I
awoke in the night and saw it all. And now they have gone where the will
and the opportunity are sure to meet. Mr. Archdale must be warned."

"But, Elizabeth," said her father, "why should he want to do it? He
succeeded in his designs upon the Archdale property. What malice can he
have?" As he spoke, he looked earnestly at his daughter. He had not been
blind to things going on about him, and especially things concerning his
daughter, but in a case like this no suppositions of his own were to
take the place of evidence.

Elizabeth met his eyes for a moment, then her own drooped and she grew
pale. It was not that her father's eyes told her his thoughts, it was at
the humiliation of her own position in being the object of mercenary
scheming. "He has not enough money," she said at last distinctly, "and
he wants more. That's what it means. And he dares to think--." She
stopped short, and for a moment it seemed as if it would be impossible
for her to go on; a hot flush came to her face and an angry light into
her eyes. Then her courage returned, and although she uttered the words
with visible effort she went resolutely on. "I know it," she said, "he
dares to think someone else,--Mr. Archdale,--is somewhat like himself,
and that he will come to want more money too. He cares for nobody, he
would stop at nothing, and he thinks that I refused him because,--he
does not understand how I feel towards him. Oh, don't you know that
sometimes you know all abou