, and then proceeded: "It is because I see my
case to be so very nearly desperate, that I venture to hope you will not
persevere in the course you are proposing to adopt."

Lord Rotherby laughed noiselessly. "Can you urge me any reasons why we
should not?"

"If you could urge me any reasons why you should," said Mr. Caryll, "no
doubt I should be able to show you under what misapprehensions you
are laboring." He shot a keen glance at his lordship, whose face had
suddenly gone blank. Mr. Caryll smiled quietly. "There is in this
something that I do not understand," he resumed. "It does not satisfy
me to suppose, as at first might seem, that you are acting out of sheer
malice against me. You have scarcely cause to do that, my lord; and you,
my lady, have none. That fool Green--patience--he conceives that he has
suffered at my hands. But without your assistance Mr. Green would be
powerless to hurt me. What, then, is it that is moving you?"

He paused, looking from one to the other of his declared enemies. They
exchanged glances--Hortensia watching them, breathless, her own mind
working, too, upon this question that Mr. Caryll had set, yet nowhere
finding an answer.

"I had thought," said her ladyship at last, "that you promised to tell
us something that it was in our interest to hear. Instead, you appear to
be asking questions."

Mr. Caryll shifted in his chair. One glance he gave the countess, then
smiled. "I have sought at your hands the reasons why you should desire
my death," said he slowly. "You withhold them. Be it so. I take it
that you are ashamed of them; and so, their nature is not difficult to
conjecture."

"Sir--" began Rotherby, hotly, half-starting from his seat.

"Nay, let him trundle on, Charles," said his mother. "He'll be the
sooner done."

"Instead," proceeded Mr. Caryll, as if there had been no interruption,
"I will now urge you my reasons why you should not so proceed."

"Ha!" snapped Rotherby. "They will need to be valid."

Mr. Caryll twisted farther round, to face his lordship more fully. "They
are as valid," said he very impressively--so impressively and sternly
that his hearers felt themselves turning cold under his words, filled
with some mysterious apprehension. "They are as valid as were my reasons
for holding my hand in the field out yonder, when I had you at the mercy
of my sword, my lord. Neither more nor less. From that, you may judge
them to be very valid."

"But ye don't name t