the insensible victim of his hard and cunning
policy, Richard advanced to the inspection of the interior recesses of
the machinery. But that which promised Adam's destruction saved him. The
heavy stroke had battered in the receptacle of the documents, had
buried them in the layers of iron. The faithful Eureka, even amidst its
injuries and wrecks, preserved the secret of its master.

The prince, with impatient hands, explored all the apertures yet
revealed, and after wasting many minutes in a fruitless search, was
about to bid the smith complete the work of destruction, when the door
suddenly opened and Lord Hastings entered. His quick eye took in the
whole scene; he arrested the lifted arm of the smith, and passing
deliberately to Gloucester, said, with a profound reverence, but a
half-reproachful smile, "My lord! my lord! your Highness is indeed
severe upon my poor scholar."

"Canst thou answer for thy scholar's loyalty?" said the duke, gloomily.

Hastings drew the prince aside, and said, in a low tone, "His loyalty!
poor man, I know not; but his guilelessness, surely, yes. Look you,
sweet prince, I know the interest thou hast in keeping well with the
Earl of Warwick, whom I, in sooth, have slight cause to love. Thou hast
trusted me with thy young hopes of the Lady Anne; this new Nevile placed
about the king, and whose fortunes Warwick hath made his care, hath,
I have reason to think, some love passages with the scholar's
daughter,--the daughter came to me for the passport. Shall this
Marmaduke Nevile have it to say to his fair kinswoman, with the
unforgiving malice of a lover's memory, that the princely Gloucester
stooped to be the torturer of yon poor old man? If there be treason in
the scholar or in yon battered craft-work, leave the search to me!"

The duke raised his dark, penetrating eyes to those of Hastings, which
did not quail; for here world-genius encountered world-genius, and art,
art.

"Thine argument hath more subtlety and circumlocution than suit with
simple truth," said the prince, smiling. "But it is enough to Richard
that Hastings wills protection even to a spy!"

Hastings kissed the duke's hand in silence, and going to the door, he
disappeared a moment and returned with Sibyll. As she entered, pale and
trembling, Adam rose, and the girl with a wild cry flew to his bosom.

"It is a winsome face, Hastings," said the duke, dryly. "I pity Master
Nevile the lover, and envy my Lord Chamberlain the p