Men
will not trust you another time. I do not think that even Mr. Wilding
can deny the truth of this."

"I am by no means sure," said Wilding, and Fletcher looked at him with
eyes that were full of understanding. This sturdy Scot, the only soldier
worthy of the name in the Duke's following, who, ever since the project
had first been mooted, had held out against it, counselling delay, was
in sympathy with Mr. Wilding.

Monmouth rose, his face anxious, his voice fretful. "There can be no
retreat for me, gentlemen. Though many that we depended upon are not
here to join us, yet let us remember that Heaven is on our side, and
that we are come to fight in the sacred cause of religion and a nation's
emancipation from the thraldom of popery, oppression, and superstition.
Let this dispel such doubts as yet may linger in our minds."

His words had a brave sound, but, when analysed, they but formed a
paraphrase of what Grey and Ferguson had said. It was his destiny to be
a mere echo of the minds of other men, just as he was now the tool
of these two, one of whom plotted, seemingly, because plotting was a
disease that had got into his blood; the other for reasons that may have
been of ambition or of revenge--no man will ever know for certain.

In the chamber they shared, Trenchard and Mr. Wilding reviewed that
night the scene so lately enacted, in which one had taken an active
part, the other been little more than a spectator. Trenchard had come
from the Duke's presence entirely out of conceit with Monmouth and
his cause, contemptuous of Ferguson, angry with Grey, and indifferent
towards Fletcher.

"I am committed, and I'll not draw back," said he; "but I tell you,
Anthony, my heart is not confederate with my hand in this. Bah!" he
railed. "We serve a man of straw, a Perkin, a very pope of a fellow."

Mr. Wilding sighed. "He's scarce the man for such an undertaking," said
he. "I fear we have been misled."

Trenchard was drawing off his boots. He paused in the act. "Aye," said
he, "misled by our blindness. What else, after all, should we have
expected of him?" he cried contemptuously. "The Cause is good; but its
leader---Pshaw! Would you have such a puppet as that on the throne of
England?"

"He does not aim so high."

"Be not so sure. We shall hear more of the black box anon, and of the
marriage certificate it contains. 'Twould not surprise me if they were
to produce forgeries of the one and the other to prove his fathe