d upon Lavinia taking flight
before he and his employer arrived on the scene.

The plot of which she was the objective was common enough in those days
of free and easy lovemaking. Merely an abduction. Rofflash had an
intimate knowledge of Whitefriars, not then, perhaps, so lawless a place
as in the times of the Stuarts, but sufficiently lawless for his
purpose. Its ancient privileges which made it a sanctuary for all that
was vile and criminal had not been entirely swept away. Rofflash knew of
more than one infamous den to which Lavinia could be conveyed, and
nobody be the wiser.

The abduction plot had failed--for the present--and Rofflash, to pacify
Dorrimore, went on another tack. In this he was personally interested.
He saw his way to make use of Dorrimore to punish Vane for the
humiliation Vane had cast upon him when they encountered each other on
London Bridge. This humiliation was a double one. Vane had not merely
knocked him down, but had rescued Lavinia under his very nose.

The insult could only be washed out in blood, and the captain had been
nursing his wrath ever since. But he was as great a coward as he was a
braggart, and a fair fight was not to his taste. He was more at home in
a stealthy approach under the cover of night, and a swift plunge of his
sword before the enemy could turn and defend himself.

With Dorrimore it was different. To do him justice, fop as he was, he
did not want for courage, and, moreover, he was a good swordsman. So
when Rofflash made out that he could bring Vane to Spring Gardens,
where Dorrimore could easily find an excuse for provoking his rival to a
duel, the Templar eagerly approved the idea.

It was to carry out this plan practically that Rofflash, after quitting
his patron in St. James's Park, made his way to Moorfields. Though he
knew that Sally had extracted a promise from Vane to meet her in Spring
Gardens, he was by no means certain that Vane would keep his word. But
Rofflash was never without resources, and he thought he could devise a
plan to bring the meeting about. His scheme proved easier to execute
than he expected. Vane unconsciously played into his hands.

After his bitter disappointment through not meeting Lavinia at
Rosamond's Pond, Vane walked back to his Grub Street lodgings plunged in
fits of melancholy, alternated with moralisings on the faithlessness of
women. He did not believe Lavinia had kept the appointment. As for Sally
Salisbury, well, it was u