!" commanded Charles.

"I would rather lose my tongue," still protested the Duchess, "than
speak such words of any one; but my duty to your Majesty--"

"No preludes," interrupted the King; and he meant it, too. He was done
with trifling, and the Duchess saw it.

"My servants," she said, with a virtuous look, "passing this abode by
chance, this very night, saw at a questionable hour a strange cavalier
entering the boudoir of Madame Gwyn!"

"She would make my honour the price of her revenge," thought Nell, her
eyes flashing. "She shall rue those words, or Adair's head and mine are
one for naught."

"What say you to this, Nell?" asked the King, the words choking in his
throat.

"Sire,--I--I--" answered Nell, evasively. "There's some mistake or
knavery!"

"She hesitates," interpolated the Duchess, eagerly.

"You change colour, wench," cried Charles, his heart, indeed, again upon
the rack. "Ho, without there! Search the house."

An officer entered quickly to obey the mandate.

"Stay, Sire," exclaimed Nell, raising herself to her full height, her
hot, trembling lips compressed, her cheeks aflame. "My oath, I have not
seen Adair's face this night."

Her words fell upon the assemblage like thunder from a June-day sky. The
King's face brightened. The Duchess's countenance grew pale as death.

"_Mon Dieu!_ Adair!" she gasped in startled accents to Lord
Buckingham, attendant at her side. "Could it be he my servants saw? The
packet! Fool! Why did I give it him?"

Buckingham trembled violently. He was even more startled than
Portsmouth; for he had more to lose. England was his home and France was
hers.

"The scales are turning against us," he whispered. "Throw in this ring
for safety. Nell's gift to Adair; you understand."

He slipped, unobserved, upon the Duchess's finger the jewelled ring the
King had given to Almahyde among the roses at the performance of
"Granada."

"Yes! Yes! 'Tis my only chance," she answered, catching at his meaning;
for her wits were of the sharpest in intrigue and cunning, and she
possessed the boldness too to execute her plans.

She approached the King, with the confident air possessed by great women
who have been bred at court.

"Your Majesty recognizes this ring?" she asked in mildest accents.

"The one I gave to Nell!" answered the astonished King.

"The one Adair this night gave to me," said Portsmouth, calmly.

"'Tis false!" cried Nell, who could restrain her tongue no longe