was his Excellency--and not a policeman or any other human being
but myself within a quarter of a mile of him. It was before I had had
any warning about him; but, by Jove! it made my blood run cold.'

'Did you make any remonstrance with him?'

'Of course I did. But he only smiled and turned it off with a joke--said
he didn't believe in all that subterranean conspiracy, and asked whether
I thought that on a bright moonlight night like that he shouldn't notice
a band of masked and cloaked conspirators closing in upon him with
daggers in their hands. No, it's no use,' Hamilton wound up
despondingly.

'Perhaps I might try,' Sir Rupert said.

'Yes, I think you had better. At all events, he will take it from you. I
don't think he would take it from me. I have worried him too much about
it, and you know he can shut one up if he wants to.'

'I tell you what,' Sir Rupert suddenly said, as if a new idea had dawned
upon him. 'I think I'll get my daughter to try what she can do with
him.'

'Oh--yes--how is that?' Hamilton asked, with a throb at his heart and a
trembling of his lips.

'Well, somehow I think my daughter has a certain influence over him--I
think he likes her--of course, it's only the influence of a clever child
and all that sort of thing--but still I fancy that something might be
made to come of it. You know she professes such open homage for him, and
she is all devoted to his cause--and he is so kind to her and puts up so
nicely with all her homage, which, of course, although she _is_ my
daughter and I adore her, must, I should say, bore a man of his time of
life a good deal when he is occupied with quite different ideas--don't
you think so, Hamilton?'

'I can't imagine a man at any time of life or with any ideas being bored
by Miss Langley,' poor Hamilton sadly replied.

'That's very nice of you, Hamilton, and I am sure you mean it, and don't
say it merely to please me--and she likes you ever so much, that I know,
for she has often told me--but I think I could make some use of her
influence over him. Don't you think so? If she were to ask him as a
personal favour--to her and to me, of course--leaving the Government
altogether out of the question--as a personal favour to her and to me to
take some care of himself--don't you think he could be induced? He is so
chivalric in his nature that I don't think he would refuse anything to a
young woman like her.'

'What is there that I could refuse to her;' poor H