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spite of what I once did, partly in ignorance--unwittingly. I myself loved Elphinston and always despised Larpent. And I did--honestly, I did--believe that he had married Mademoiselle Baufremont."
"Well," she said, "well, he had not. Enough of that. And, since you ask me to trust you once again as I trusted you before, I answer you--remember his life, as well as Douglas Sholto's, are in your hands--he is in London. Both are here."
"'Tis madness," he murmured, "madness. For, Kitty, as sure as he is here he will be betrayed. Fordingbridge will denounce him."
"Have you seen him?" he asked, still in a low voice.
He knew that in London at this time walls almost had ears, and that every footman or waiting-maid might be a spy of the Government--especially in a house but recently re-opened after many years of disuse, and, consequently, possessing a staff of servants new to their employers and taking neither interest nor sympathy in their affairs. Also he knew that, in the garb of servants, many a Government agent was carefully watching every action of his or her temporary employers. London especially had but recently recovered from too great a fright to cease as yet to fear for its safety, and saw a bugbear in many harmless strangers now in its midst; the house of a nobleman returned recently from France--the birthplace of the late invasion--and known to be a Catholic, would, therefore, be a particularly likely object to be subjected to supervision, quiet yet effectual.
"No," she replied; "no, I have not seen him. God forbid I should. And if I did, the only words I could, I think, find heart to utter would be to beseech him to fly at once. Oh! father, father, I dread some awful calamity, though I know not in what form or shape it may come."
As she spoke, a tap was heard at the door, and, a second afterwards, Father Sholto entered the room, while so much had her ladyship's fears and tremors overcome her and her father that both exclaimed at once, in the same words, "Is all well?"
"In so far as I know," he replied, after having exchanged morning greetings with them. "As well as all will ever be. Why do you ask? Have you reason to dread aught?"
"No, no," Kitty replied. "Still, I know not why, I am strangely uneasy, strangely nervous to-day. Some feeling of impending ills seems to hang over me."
"From an acquaintance of mine--one who is in the office of the Scotch Secretary of State. Nay," he went on, seeing the look of disappointment on her face, and knowing she had expected matter of a different kind, "'tis worth hearing. Among the names of those now in London for whom diligent search is being made--the names of those who, if found, are doomed--three do not appear--three in whom we are concerned."
"Our two friends across the river and--and--myself."
"Therefore you may escape at once?" she asked. "All of you? There is nothing to keep you here in England--the Cause is broken, it can never be regained now--you can all depart in peace?"
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