ious
society beyond the pale of legal protection. That we shall ultimately
find them out and avenge ourselves, you need not doubt. But in the
meantime every known dissentient from the customs of the majority is
in danger, and persons of note or prominence especially so. Next to
Esmo and his son, the husband of his daughter is, perhaps, in as much
peril as any one. No open attempt on your life will be adventured at
present, while you retain the favour of the Campta. But you have made
at least one mortal and powerful enemy, and you may possibly be the
object of well-considered and persistent schemes of assassination. On
the other hand, next to our Chief and his son, you have a paramount
claim on the protection of the Order; and those who with me will take
charge of your affairs have also charge to watch vigilantly over your
life. If you will trust me beforehand with knowledge of all your
movements, I think your chief peril will lie in the one sphere upon
which we cannot intrude--your own household; and Clavelta directs your
own special attention to this quarter. Immediate danger can scarcely
threaten you as yet, save from a woman's hand."

"Poison?"

"Probably," he returned coolly. "But of the details of the plot our
Council are, I believe, as absolutely ignorant as of the quarter from
which it proceeds."

"And how," I inquired, "can it be that the witness who has informed
you of the plot has withheld the names, without which his information
is so imperfect, and serves rather to alarm than to protect us?"

"You know," he replied, "the kind of mysterious perception to which we
can resort, and are probably aware how strangely lucid in some points,
how strangely darkened in others, is the vision that does not depend
on ordinary human senses?"

As we spoke we had passed Eunane once or twice, walking backwards and
forwards along the path near which she sat. As my companion was about
to continue, we were so certainly within her hearing that I checked
him.

"Take care," I said; "I know nothing of her except the Campta's
choice, and that she is not of us."

He visibly started.

"I thought," he said, "that the witness of our conversation was one at
least as reliable as yourself. I forgot how it happened that you have
diverged from the prudence which forbids our brethren to admit to
their households aliens from the Order and possible spies on its
secrets."

"Of whom do you speak as Clavelta?" I asked. "I was not even a