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n forgive a crime, but not an insult." Then, sending a hurried message to her aunt, she paced on down the room, her head held high, the damask roses still blooming brilliantly, the stars still shining brightly. A score of officious hands held her cloak, a dozen officious voices called her chair. And my Lady Barbara thanked her helpers with smiling lips that were still pomegranate red, and yet the curtains of her chair caught her first sob as they descended about her, and it seemed but a disheveled mass of draperies that the footmen discovered when they set the lady down at her own door, so prone she was with grief and despair. XV. Lord Farquhart seemed to recover himself but slowly from the shock of Lady Barbara's denunciation, from the surprise of her whispered words. At last he raised his eyes to Lord Grimsby, who was still looking at him curiously. "I fear that I should also ask your pardon, my Lord Grimsby, for this confusion." Lord Farquhart's words came slowly. "My cousin, the Lady Barbara, must be strangely overwrought. With your permission, I will follow her and attend to her needs." He turned and for the first time looked definitely at the little knot of men that surrounded him. The women, young and old, had been withdrawn from his environment by their escorts. His eyes traveled slowly from one to another of the familiar faces. "Surely, my Lord Grimsby," clamored Ashley, "you will not let the fellow escape!" "Surely my Lord Grimsby is going to place no reliance on a tale like this told by a whimsical girl!" retorted Lord Farquhart before Lord Grimsby's slow words had fallen on his ears. "We will most assuredly take all measures for safeholding my Lord Farquhart." "But, Lord Grimsby," cried Farquhart, realizing for the first time that the situation might have a serious side, "you surely do not believe this tale!" "I would like to see some reason for doubting the lady's word," answered the older man. "And you forget that her story is corroborated by Mr. Ashley. Neither must you overlook the fact that for some time the authorities have been convinced that this highwayman was no common rogue, that he is undoubtedly some one closely connected with our London life, if--if indeed----" But this was no place for Lord Grimsby to assert his own opinion that the highwayman was indeed the devil incarnate. "Why, the whole thing is the merest fabrication," cried Lord Farquhart, impatiently. "It
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