he handle.

"Very well, Lackington, keep him in his room. I will go through here to
Nichol."

Isabel had drawn a sharp breath as the voice began, and as the door
opened wider she turned and faced it. Then Hubert came in, and recoiled
on the threshold. There fell a complete silence in the room.

"Hubert," said Isabel after a moment, "what are you doing here?"

Hubert shut the door abruptly and leaned against it, staring at her; his
face had gone white under the tan. Isabel still looked at him steadily,
and her eyes were eloquent. Then she spoke again, and something in her
voice quickened the beating of Mary's heart as she listened.

"Hubert, have you forgotten us?"

Still Hubert stared; then he stood upright. The two men-at-arms were
watching in astonishment.

"I will see to the ladies," he said abruptly, and waved his hand. They
still hesitated a moment.

"Go," he said again sharply, and pointed to the door. He was a
magistrate, and responsible; and they turned and went.

Then Hubert looked at Isabel again.

"Isabel," he said, "if I had known----"

"Stay," she interrupted, "there is no time for explanations except mine.
Anthony is in the house; I do not know where. You must save him."

There was no entreaty or anxiety in her voice; nothing but a supreme
dignity and an assurance that she would be obeyed.

"But----" he began. The door was opened from the hall, and a little party
of searchers appeared, but halted when the magistrate turned round.

"Come with me," he said to the two women, "you must have a room kept for
you upstairs," and he held back the door for them to pass.

Isabel put out her hand to Mary, and the two went out together into the
hall past the men, who stood back to let them through, and Hubert
followed. They turned to the left to the stairs, looking as they went
upon the wild confusion. Above them rose the carved ceiling, and in the
centre of the floor, untouched, by a strange chance, stood the
dinner-table, still laid with silver and fruit and flowers. But all else
was in disarray. The leather screen that had stood by the door into the
entrance hall had been overthrown, and had carried with it a tall
flowering plant that now lay trampled and broken before the hearth. A
couple of chairs lay on their backs between the windows; the rug under
the window was huddled in a heap, and all over the polished boards were
scratches and dents; a broken sword-hilt lay on the floor with a
feathered c