s sent him to London instead,
to a house in Thames Street, where dwells one Colonel Pride, who
bears Sir Crispin a heavy grudge, and into whose hands he will be thus
delivered. Can aught be done, Cynthia, to arrest this--to save Sir
Crispin from Joseph's snare?"

"As well might you seek to restore the breath to a dead man," she
answered, and her voice was so oddly calm, so cold and bare of
expression, that Gregory shuddered to hear it.

"Do not delude yourself," she added. "Sir Crispin will have reached
London long ere this, and by now Joseph will be well on his way to see
that there is no mistake made, and that the life you ruined hopelessly
years ago is plucked at last from this unfortunate man. Merciful God! am
I truly your daughter?" she cried. "Is my name indeed Ashburn, and have
I been reared upon the estates that by crime you gained possession of?
Estates that by crime you hold--for they are his; every stone, every
stick that goes to make the place belongs to him, and now he has gone to
his death by your contriving."

A moan escaped her, and she covered her face with her hands. A moment
she stood rocking there--a fair, lissom plant swept by a gale of
ineffable emotion. Then the breath seemed to go all out of her in one
great sigh, and Gregory, who dared not look her way, heard the swish of
her gown, followed by a thud as she collapsed and lay swooning on the
ground.

So disturbed at that was Gregory's spirit that, forgetting his wound,
his fever, and the death which he had believed impending, he leapt from
his couch, and throwing wide the door, bellowed lustily for Stephen. In
frightened haste came his henchman to answer the petulant summons, and
in obedience to Gregory's commands he went off again as quickly in quest
of Catherine--Cynthia's woman.

Between them they bore the unconscious girl to her chamber, leaving
Gregory to curse himself for having been lured into a confession that
it now seemed to him had been unnecessary, since in his newly found
vitality he realized that death was none so near a thing as that
scoundrelly fool of a leech had led him to believe.

CHAPTER XXIV. THE WOOING OF CYNTHIA

Cynthia's swoon was after all but brief. Upon recovering consciousness
her first act was to dismiss her woman. She had need to be alone--the
need of the animal that is wounded to creep into its lair and hide
itself. And so alone with her sorrow she sat through that long day.

That her father's co