n
alarmist--and a fool.'

So, looking very green of complexion and grim of countenance, Soame
Rivers crushed the despatch and thrust it into his pocket, and then went
upstairs to the ladies.

CHAPTER XXII

THE EXPEDITION

Every room in every house has its mystery by day and by night. But at
night the mystery becomes more involved and a darker veil gathers round
the secret. Each inmate goes off to bed with a smiling good-night to
each other, and what could be more unlike than the hopes and plans and
schemes for the morrow which each in silence is forming? All this of
course is obvious and commonplace. But there would be a certain novelty
of illustration if we were to take the fall of night upon Seagate Hall
and try to make out what secrets it covered.

Ericson had found a means of letting Helena know by a few whispered
words that he had heard news which would probably cut short his visit to
Seagate Hall and hurry his departure from London. The girl had listened
with breath kept resolutely in and bosom throbbing, and she dared not
question further at such a moment. Only she said, 'You will tell me
all?' and he said, 'Yes, to-morrow'; and she subsided and was content to
wait and to take her secret to sleep with her, or rather take her secret
with her to keep her from sleeping. Mrs. Sarrasin had found means to
tell her husband what Dolores had told her--and Sarrasin agreed with his
wife in thinking that, although the discovery might appear trivial in
itself, it had possibilities in it the stretch of which it would be
madness to underrate. Ericson and Hamilton had common thoughts
concerning the expedition to Gloria; but Hamilton had not confided to
the Dictator any hint of what Mrs. Sarrasin had told him, and what
Dolores had told Mrs. Sarrasin. On the other hand, Ericson did not think
it at all necessary to communicate to Hamilton the feelings with which
the prospect of a speedy leaving of Seagate Hall had inspired him. Soame
Rivers, we may be sure, took no one into the secret of the cyphered
despatch which he had received, and which as yet he had kept in his own
exclusive possession. If the gifted Professor Flick and his devoted
friend Mr. Copping had secrets--as no doubt they had--they could hardly
be expected to proclaim them on the house-tops of Seagate Hall--a place
on the shores of a foreign country. The common feeling cannot be
described better than by saying that everybody wanted everybody else to
get