imself robbed of words. "You hang!"
he ended shortly.

"Ye're sure of that?" questioned Mr. Caryll.

"I would I were as sure of Heaven."

"I think you may be--just about as sure," Mr. Caryll rejoined, entirely
unperturbed, and he sauntered forward towards Hortensia. Rotherby and
his mother watched him, exchanging glances.

Then Rotherby shrugged and sneered. "'Tis his bluster," said he. "He'll
be a farceur to the end. I doubt he's half-witted."

Mr. Caryll never heeded him. He was bending beside Hortensia. He took
her hand, and bore it to his lips. "Sweet," he murmured, "'twas a
treason that you intended. Have you, then, no faith in me? Courage,
sweetheart, they cannot hurt me."

She clutched his hands, and looked up into his eyes. "You but say that
to comfort me!" she cried.

"Not so," he answered gravely. "I tell you no more than what is true.
They think they hold me. They will cheat, and lie and swear falsely to
the end that they may destroy me. But they shall have their pains for
nothing."

"Ay--depend upon that," Rotherby mocked him. "Depend upon it--to the
gallows."

Mr Caryll's curious eyes smiled upon his brother, but his lips were
contemptuous. "I am of your own blood, Rotherby--your brother," he said
again, "and once already out of that consideration I have spared your
life--because I would not have a brother's blood upon my hands." He
sighed, and continued: "I had hoped that you had enough humanity to do
the same. I deplore that you should lack it; but I deplore it for your
own sake, because, after all, you are my brother. Apart from that, it
matters nothing to me."

"Will it matter nothing when you are proved a Jacobite spy?" cried her
ladyship, enraged beyond endurance by this calm scorn of them. "Will it
matter nothing when it is proved that you carried that letter, and would
have carried that other--that you were empowered to treat in your exiled
master's name? Will that matter nothing?"

He looked at her an instant, then, as if utterly disdaining to answer
her, he turned again to Rotherby. "I were a fool and blind, did I not
see to the bottom of this turbid little puddle upon which you think to
float your argosies. You are selling me. You are to make a bargain with
the government to forbear the confiscations your father has incurred out
of consideration of the service you can render by disclosing this plot,
and you would throw me in as something tangible--in earnest of the
others that may