all the sweet spring morning came on apace, and from the fields and
little gardens came the breath of flowers. The sky was blue. The languor
of springtime pulsed through the veins of those young creatures, those
engines of life, of passion and desire. Neither of the two women saw the
torn garb of the man before them. They saw but the curve of the strong
chest beneath. They heard, and the one heard and felt as keenly as the
other, the voice of the young man, musical and rich, touching some
deep-seated and vibrating heart-string. So in the merry month of May,
with the birds singing in the trees, and the scent of the flowers wafted
coolly to their senses, they came on apace to the throng at Sadler's
Wells. There it was that John Law, finding in a pocket a coin that had
been overlooked, reached out to a vender and bought a rose. He offered
his flower with a deep inclination of the body to the Lady Catharine.

It was at this moment that Mary Connynge first began to hate her friend,
the Lady Catharine Knollys.

CHAPTER IV

THE POINT OF HONOR

"Tell me, friend Castleton," said Pembroke, banteringly, "art still
adhering to thy country drink of lamb's-wool? Methinks burnt ale and
toasted apple might better be replaced in thy case by a beaker of
stronger waters. You lose, and still you lose."

"May a plague take it!" cried Castleton. "I've had no luck these four
days. 'Tis that cursed lap-dog of the duchess. Ugh! I saw it in my
dreams last night."

"Gad! your own fortune in love must be ill enough, Sir Arthur," said
Beau Wilson, as he pushed back his chair during this little lull in the
play of the evening.

"And tell me why, Beau?"

"Because of us all who have met here at the Green Lion these last
months, not one hath ever had so steady a run of luck. Sure some fairy
hath befriended thee. _Sept et le va, sept et le va_--I'll hear it in my
ears to-night, even as Castleton sees the lap-dog. Man, you play as
though you read the pack quite through."

"Ah, then, you admit that there is some such thing as a talisman. I'll
not deny that I have had one these last three evenings, but I feared to
tell ye all, lest I might be waylaid and robbed of my good-luck charm."

"Tell us, tell us, man, what it is!" cried Castleton. "_Sept et le va_
has not been made in this room before for many a month, yet here thou
comest with the run of _sept et le va_ thrice in as many hours."

"Well, then," continued Pembroke, still smiling