rquhart's awakening on that same morning was the most curious,
the most unpleasant, of them all. It occurred even later in the day
than the others, and there was no laughter of any kind on his lips.
Rather were they framing curses. Another day and night of freedom were
gone. His marriage to the Lady Barbara Gordon was a day nearer. How
could he laugh? Why should he not curse?

Suddenly his eyes fell on a tabouret that stood near his bed. On it
lay a withered rose and half a dozen jeweled rings. The rose he had
never seen before. The rings he was almost sure he had seen on Lady
Barbara's hands.

Hurriedly summoning a servant, he demanded an explanation of how the
articles had come there.

The man, also unrefreshed by his night's sleep, admitted that he had
found the flower and the jewels in Lord Farquhart's coat, that he had
placed them on the tabouret himself.

"In my coat? In what coat?" demanded Lord Farquhart.

"In your lordship's riding coat," stammered the servant. "In the coat
that you wore yesterday when we rode to The Jolly Grig. It seemed
safer to me to place the jewels near your lordship's bed than to leave
them in the coat."

And now it was Lord Farquhart's turn to rub his eyes. He wondered if
he was indeed awake. And then the curses that had shaped his lips
passed the threshold and poured forth in volumes upon the head of the
luckless servant, who was in no wise to blame, and finally upon the
Lady Barbara herself. For to Lord Farquhart's mind came no other
solution of the mystery than that the Lady Barbara had met with no
highwayman at all, that the whole story of the hold up had been but a
silly country girl's joke gotten up by herself and her servants.
Doubtless it was a joke on him that she had planned, and he had been
too dull to see its point. The upshot of his thoughts and the end of
his ravings were a command to the servant to return the articles
forthwith to the Lady Barbara Gordon, to the lady herself, in person,
and to say to her that Lord Farquhart would wait upon her late that
afternoon.

X.

The Lady Barbara, in the midst of her interview with Mr. Ashley, was
disturbed by Lord Farquhart's servant bearing her rings and the rose
that had been stolen the night before. Her confusion expressed itself
in deep damask roses on the cheeks that had, indeed, been lily white
before.

"Lord Farquhart returns these to me?" she cried in her amazement.

"Yes, my lady, he said that they were to p