nt Zenobia expected.
They were out, no question about that; but it was not so certain who was
in. A day passed and another day, and even Zenobia, who knew everything
before anybody, remained in the dark. The suspense became protracted and
even more mysterious. Almost a week had elapsed; noble lords and right
honourable gentlemen were calling on Sir Robert every morning, according
to the newspapers, but no one could hear from any authority of any
appointments being really made. At last, there was a whisper very late
one night at Crockford's, which was always better informed on these
matters than the political clubs, and people looked amazed, and stared
incredulously in each other's face. But it was true; there was a hitch,
and in four-and-twenty hours the cause of the hitch was known. It seemed
that the ministry really had resigned, but Berengaria, Countess of
Montfort, had not followed their example.

What a dangerous woman! even wicked! Zenobia was for sending her to
the Tower at once. "It was clearly impossible," she declared, "for Sir
Robert to carry on affairs with such a Duchesse de Longueville always
at the ear of our young Queen, under the pretence forsooth of being the
friend of Her Majesty's youth."

This was the famous Bed-Chamber Plot, in which the Conservative leaders,
as is now generally admitted, were decidedly in error, and which
terminated in the return of the Whigs to office.

"But we must reconstruct," said Lady Montfort to the prime minister.
"Sidney Wilton must be Secretary of State. And you," she said to
Endymion, when she communicated to him the successful result of her
interference, "you will go with him. It is a great thing at your age to
be private secretary to a Secretary of State."

CHAPTER LIX

Montfort Castle was the stronghold of England against the Scotch
invader. It stood on a high and vast table-land, with the town of
Montfort on one side at its feet, and on the other a wide-spreading and
sylvan domain, herded with deer of various races, and terminating in
pine forests; beyond them moors and mountains. The donjon keep, tall and
grey, that had arrested the Douglas, still remained intact, and many
an ancient battlement; but the long list of the Lords of Montfort had
successively added to the great structure according to the genius of the
times, so that still with the external appearance generally of a
feudal castle, it combined in its various courts and quadrangle all the
splendo