Cecil did as he was bidden, and, drawing back hastily, said:

"You're right. I'm afraid the game is up. Where are we, anyway?"

"If this is the station I take it to be, we're just on the line between the two countries. But whether our car's in Canady or the States is more'n I can tell."

"Is there anything to be done?" asked Banborough, turning to Smith and Spotts, who at this moment quietly joined the Quaker at the Englishman's bedside.

"Plenty," replied Spotts. "It's only a question of going North. Ten feet may mean the difference between a prison and the 'Windsor.'"

"Well, what shall we do?"

"Are you dressed?"

"All but my boots and coat," answered Cecil. "I'm not enough of a gymnast to disrobe in a space six feet by two, and besides I thought something of this sort might occur."

"Well, get into your boots, then, and don't make any more noise than necessary," said Spotts. "The ladies must be ready by this time. You were called last."

"Are you going to make a bolt for it?" queried Banborough, as he put one foot out of bed.

"Sh!" returned Spotts. "Not so loud! The officials out there on the platform are not sure that we're on board. My suggestion that Mrs. Mackintosh should buy the tickets was a lucky move, as she was not known. I'm going to pull the bell-cord as a sign to start, in the hopes that the engineer will get going before the conductor has time to reverse the signal, which means we'll run to the next station. If we don't succeed in pulling out, we'll just have to jump off and sprint for it."

"Go ahead," said Banborough. "I'll have my boots on by the time I want them."

The actor took a cautious look round the sleeper. Quiet reigned, except for their own little party, who were by this time all gathered together, the ladies having joined them.

"Now!" said Friend Othniel. And Spotts, reaching up, gave two sharp jerks to the cord which swung from the centre of the car.

Instantly the air-brakes were relaxed, the engine gave forth a series of mighty exhausts, the great driving-wheels spun round for a second on the rails, then caught their grip, and the train began to move out of the station.

A perfect pandemonium at once arose without. Shouts, gesticulations, and the waving of a multitude of lights, but the train still kept on moving, and the last car, in which the fugitives were, was sweeping past the station building, when the conductor, capless, but lantern in hand, emerged from the ticket-office and sprang for the rear platform of the train. A second later the quick jerk of the bell-cord and an answering whistle from the engine told them that he had succeeded in boarding the train and signalling it to stop.

The Quaker, forgetful of his cloth, swore lustily.

"Come on!" cried Spotts, "we'll have to run for it. They'll back into the station in a minute, and then we're done for." And suiting the action to the word, he rushed down the car towards the front of the train. The rest followed him with the best speed they could muster, falling over boxes and bundles, getting entangled in stray shoes, and running foul of swinging portieres. Fortunately the cars were vestibuled, so the platforms offered no impediment. The train seemed absolutely interminable, for as they dashed through sleeper after sleeper, one more always appeared ahead, and Banborough could not help feeling as he ran, hatless and in his shirt-sleeves, with his coat under his arm and one shoe-string untied, that the whole thing must after all be some wildly improbable dream from which he would awake in due course.

Now they felt the train stand still and then begin slowly to move backwards, which only hastened their flight. But there is an end to everything, and presently the last sleeper had been passed through, and they emerged, hot and breathless, into the baggage-car, immediately behind the engine. Here for the first time they found an open door, the vestibules having all been tightly closed.

Spotts, who led the way, wasted no time in explanation, but making one dash at the burly baggage-master who confronted him, gave him a blow that sent him flying backwards. At the same instant he managed to trip up his assistant, causing the two men to come down on the floor together, bringing with them in their fall two bicycles and half a dozen crates of eggs.

Grasping any light luggage he could seize, Friend Othniel added this to the heap, while Spotts, throwing open the great door in the side of the car, cried:

"Jump for all you're worth!"

Smith stood cowering on the edge of the door-sill, little relishing the prospect of a wild leap into the night. But the Quaker, who had no time to waste on arguments, smashed down the top bicycle with one hand, thus placing his two opponents on their backs on the floor, and swinging round at the same moment, delivered a kick to the tragedian which sent him flying into outer darkness after the manner of a spread eagle.

The train was only just moving, and Spotts sprang quickly to the ground, and, running alongside the car, called to Miss Arminster to jump into his arms, which she promptly did. Putting her to one side out of the reach of the train, he ran forward to receive Mrs. Mackintosh; but that good lady, being unaccustomed to such acrobatic feats, and arriving with more force than precision, completely bowled him over, and they went flying into space together. Banborough and Friend Othniel followed almost immediately, and, both trying to get out of the door at the same time, collided with considerable force, and performed a series of somersaults, landing with safety, but emphasis, in a potato-patch.

As the engine swept by them, Cecil sat up and surveyed the scene. It certainly was an unusual situation, and the half-light of the early morning only served to make their attitudes the more grotesque. The party was scattered at large over the field in question. Smith, on one knee, was rubbing the bruised portions of his body. Miss Arminster, who had landed safely on her feet, was standing with both hands clasped to her head, an attitude suggesting concussion of the brain, but which in reality betokened nothing more dreadful than an utter disarrangement of her hair. Spotts had assumed an unconventional attitude at her feet, while the Quaker, face down, with hands and legs outspread, seemed to be trying to swim due north.

Directly opposite the Englishman, seated erect and prim on what had once been a hill of potatoes, her bonnet perched rakishly on one ear, and her grey toupee partially disarranged, hanging with its sustaining hairpins over her eyes, was Mrs. Mackintosh, firmly grasping in one hand her green silk parasol which she had never relinquished.

As Banborough met her gaze, she demanded sternly:

"What next, young man, I should like to know?"

"Really, Mrs. Mackintosh," he replied, "if for no other reason, you ought to be deeply indebted to me as a purveyor of new sensations."

"This is not a time for levity, sir," remarked that lady sternly, dropping her parasol and hastily restoring her toupee to its original position, "and I consider it perfectly disgraceful that you should cause a lady of my character to be arrested in a potato-patch at four o'clock in the morning!"

"That's just what I've been endeavouring to prevent," he said. "I believe this to be Canada."

"Then Canada's a very poor sort of a country," she replied snappishly.

The others now approached them, and all eyes were turned to the railroad station a few hundred yards distant, which was alive with bobbing lanterns. Presently a cluster of lights detached itself from the rest and came towards them.

"Do you think they're going to arrest us?" asked Miss Arminster timidly.

"Don't you be afraid, miss," returned Friend Othniel. "You just let me run this circus, and I'll get you out all right and no mistake."

The party now came up to them. It consisted of the station-master, the conductor, several trainmen, and the two policemen.

"Here!" said the conductor. "What did you mean by pulling the cord and starting the train?"

"Because we was anxious to see the beauties of Canady," replied the tramp.

"Ah, I thought as much," said one of the policemen.

"I am afraid," added the other, "we shall be obliged to persuade you and your party to stay in the United States for a while. You may consider yourselves under arrest."

"Thank yer," said the tramp sweetly.

"So, to save trouble," continued the officer, "you might as well come back quietly with us to the station."

"Yah!" retorted the tramp. "'Will yer walk into my parlour?' said the spider to the fly. I knows that game, and I guess the climate o' Canady suits my constitution."

"Nonsense!" replied the policeman. "You aren't over the border by about two miles."

"Oh, ain't we?" said the tramp. "Just oblige me, then, by putting them bracelets which I sees hangin' out o' your pocket on my wrists." And he held out his hands.

The policeman looked sheepish, whispered something to his companion, and presently they turned their backs on the party and walked away in the direction of the station.

"We's so stuck on this piece o' land," called Friend Othniel after them, "that we thinks o' farmin' it permanently. Come back and spend Christmas with us, won't yer?"

The officers did not deign to notice these remarks, and a few moments later the train swept by them on its way to Montreal, the baggage-master and his assistant giving their views on the party in general as they passed.

The day now really began to break in earnest, bringing with it a cold, damp chill, which seemed to penetrate to their very marrow. Spotts took off his coat and wrapped it around the shivering Violet—an act of chivalry which made Banborough curse his own thoughtlessness. But Spotts's endeavours to promote the comfort of the company did not end here. He roused Friend Othniel into action, and succeeded in collecting a little stubble and underbrush, and with the aid of a few matches they made an apology for a fire, round which the forlorn party huddled. But, damp with the early dews, the brush gave out more smoke than flame, only serving to emphasize their discomfort.

The increasing light showed them something of their surroundings. At distances varying from a mile to a mile and a half a few dilapidated dwellings peeped out of a fringe of woods. Everything else was pine-swamp, with the exception of the one small field of potatoes in which they were encamped, and which stood out as an oasis in the wilderness. Through the midst of the landscape straggled a muddy road, hopelessly impassable for foot-travellers. Certainly the outlook was not cheering.

It was therefore with a feeling of positive relief that they perceived shambling towards them the uncouth figure of the station-master. He paused on the edge of the patch, with one hand embedded in his shock of hair, and the other grasping a large piece of chalk, and surveyed the party critically.

"Say," he began after a few moments' silence, "them's my potatoes you're a-settin' on."

The tramp growled something unintelligible, and the others vouchsafed no reply whatsoever.

"I guess it must be purty damp out in that field," continued the station-master, "specially for the ladies, and I thought as how I'd let yer know as I was a-makin' some coffee over to the station, and yer could come and get it if yer liked."

"Yes, and get arrested into the bargain," said Spotts.

"I thought of that," replied the man, "and so I've drawed a line onto the platform with this piece of chalk, jest where the boundary be, and so long as yer stays to the northard of it yer can't be ketched."

"How are we to know that that is just the boundary?" asked Banborough.

"'Pears to me you're mighty 'spicious. Anyhow, thar's the line and thar's the coffee. Yer can take it or leave it, jest as yer likes."

"I'd make it worth your while to bring it to us down here," said Cecil.

"Humph!" returned the maker of beverages. "I don't go totin' coffee all round the country, and I'd like to remind yer as potatoes ain't eggs and don't need no hatchin', so the sooner you gets through settin' on 'em the better I'll be pleased." And turning his back he slouched away to the station.

"What do you think about it?" said Banborough to Spotts.

"I think it's a plan," replied the actor. "A New England farmer never misses a chance of making a penny when he can do so, and that fellow would have been glad enough to sell his coffee to us at a fancy price anywhere we chose to drink it if he hadn't been offered more to entice us up to the station."

"Well, I'm not going to pass the rest of my days on top of a potato-hill," said Mrs. Mackintosh spitefully. "I'm so stiff now I can hardly move."

"Yes, I don't think there's much to wait for," agreed Cecil. "But where shall we go?"

"To the next station, I guess," said the tramp. "But in Canady that's as likely to be thirteen miles as it is two, and this track ain't ballasted for a walking-tour."

The fair Violet heaved a deep sigh.

"What is it?" asked Banborough anxiously. "Don't you feel well?"

"I do feel a little faint," she replied, "but I dare say I'll be better in a minute. I shouldn't have sighed, only I was thinking what an old wretch that station-master is, and how good that coffee would have tasted."

"You shall have some," he said, determined not to be outdone again by Spotts, "and I'll get it for you myself."

"No, no!" she protested. "I didn't mean that. I shouldn't have said it. I wouldn't have you go for worlds. You'd surely be arrested."

"Nonsense!" he replied. "I think I can manage it and get back safely, and you and Mrs. Mackintosh must have something sustaining, for you've a long walk before you." And, in spite of all remonstrances, he prepared to set out on his delicate and dangerous mission.

"What's your plan?" asked Friend Othniel, immensely interested now there was a chance of an adventure.

"I'm going to crawl along in the dry ditch beside the railroad track till I get up to the station, and then trust to luck. I used to be able to do a hundred yards in pretty decent time in my Oxford days, and if I can get into the refreshment-room without being seen, I don't think they'll catch me."

"Well, good luck to yer," said the tramp, "and if yer should come across a hunk of pumpkin pie, don't forget your friend Othniel."

Banborough slipped off his overcoat, and donning a pair of heavy dogskin gloves, the property of the driver of the Black Maria, which the tramp produced, he watched his opportunity when no one was in sight at the station, and, cautioning the rest of the party not to betray by their actions that anything unusual was going on, stole across the open field and, dropping into the shallow ditch, began his perilous journey.

Within three feet of the edge of the platform all means of concealment ceased; but feeling that a bold course was the only one which gave any hope of success, Cecil rose quickly, and, slipping across the exposed place in an instant, glided into the great woodshed which in that part of the world, where coal is expensive, forms an important adjunct to every station. He felt himself practically secure here, as no one was likely to come for logs so early in the morning; and after waiting for a few moments to make certain that his presence had not been discovered, he threw himself down on his face, and, crawling noiselessly on all-fours across the twenty feet of open platform which intervened between the woodshed and the main building, achieved the precarious shelter afforded by the side wall of the house. He then wormed himself forward till he was close to the front corner; and here his patient efforts were at last rewarded, for he heard a few scraps of a conversation which, had he been in a less dangerous position, would have afforded him infinite amusement.

"I tell you what it is," came the strident voice of the station-master. "It ain't no mortal manner of use. Why, they spotted me to onct; said how was they to know I drawed the line correct."

"Ha!" said one of the policemen. "Couldn't you go out and dicker with them some more?"

"Nope," rejoined the other shortly. "And there's that whole tin o' coffee in the back room goin' to waste, and I guess they'd have paid more'n a dollar for it."

"Where's Mr. Marchmont?" asked the second speaker, a remark which caused Banborough considerable surprise.

"He's been keepin' out o' the way o' them Spaniards," said the station-master, "lest they should get a sight of him, 'cause he may have to shadow 'em in Canady, and he don't want 'em to get on to who he is. He's gone upstairs now to get a snooze, an' that's where I'm goin', too. There ain't no train for three hours, and I've had enough o' this durned foolishness."

"What's that?" cried the policeman, as a sharp sound smote their ears.

"Tain't nothin' but the back door slammin'," replied the other. "I must ha' forgot to latch it. The wind's riz a bit."

"Yes," said the officer, "and it's going to rain presently."

"I guess I'd better go and shet that door."

"No, you stay here; I want to talk to you. We'll let them get thoroughly drenched, and you can offer them the hospitality of the woodshed. Maybe we could alter the boundary-line a few feet in the interests of justice."

Banborough waited to hear no more, but, drawing softly back, sprang to his feet and ran noiselessly along the side of the house and round to the unlatched door behind. Now, if ever, was his chance. He dashed into a room which seemed to be a combination of kitchen and bar, but on the stove stood a steaming tin can of savoury coffee, while among the bottles on the shelf, just showing out of its paper wrappings, was a goodly loaf of white bread. Had he left well alone, and been satisfied with the coffee, he would have been all right; but the bread tempted him, and to obtain possession of it he must go behind the bar. This he hastened to do, unlatching the little swinging gate at the end, when a scuffling sound from the room above gave place to heavy foot-falls on the boards, and a moment later Marchmont called down the stairs which evidently led into the front room:

"Say! One of that gang's in the bar! I saw him come up to the door as I was lying in bed!" A bit of information which was instantly followed by a clatter of chairs on the front platform.

Wedged in behind the bar, Banborough felt himself trapped. But a happy inspiration seizing him, he possessed himself of the can of coffee and, with the loaf of bread in his other hand, crawled under the protecting shelf, while just at that moment a particularly strong gust of wind blew the unlatched door wide open, banging it back against the wall.

To his intense astonishment, Cecil found his hiding-place already occupied by the recumbent and sleeping form of a man, and, jumping to the conclusion that he must be either a policeman or a detective, he promptly sat upon his head with a view to suppressing any inopportune remarks. A second later three men rushed into the room, and Banborough held his breath. But luck was with him, for one glance at the empty stove and the open door satisfied the station-master, who cried:

"Those fellows has bolted with the coffee!" and dashed out at the back, followed by the policemen.

In a second Cecil was up and out of the bar, but not before he had received a smashing blow in the ribs from the stranger he had so rudely awakened. He promptly struck out in return, and from the sputtering and thrashing sounds which emanated from under the shelf he judged that his blow had gone home.

Snatching up the coffee and the bread, he dashed through to the front of the house, and, emerging on the platform, saw a sight which filled his heart with joy. On the track stood one of those little flat cars, employed by section-men, which is propelled by means of a wheel and crank in the centre turned by hand, on the same principle as a velocipede.

He sprang upon it, deposited his precious burden, and began turning the crank with feverish energy. To his joy, the car at once started forward, and under his well-directed pressure went rattling out of the station, shooting by his three astonished pursuers as they rounded the corner of the woodshed. Two minutes later he arrived in triumph at the potato-patch, being warmly welcomed by his admiring companions, who forthwith fell to and made a satisfying, if frugal, meal.

Just as they were finishing, the station-master came up, and, being rendered thoroughly amiable by a liberal recompense for the stolen viands, so far forgot himself, in his appreciation of Banborough's pluck, as to admit that there was no objection to their taking the flat car on to the next station, provided they could square it with the superintendent on arrival, as there were no trains due either way.

"How far is the next station?" asked Cecil, as the party clambered on to the car.

"About twelve miles," said Miss Arminster.

"Do you know it?" asked Banborough, still glowing under her praises of his prowess.

"Oh, yes," she replied softly. "I was married there last June."

The Englishman, muttering something under his breath, seized the handles and, giving them a vicious turn, sent the car spinning northwards.



CHAPTER VIII.

IN WHICH A LOCKET IS ACCEPTED AND A RING REFUSED.

Something over a week after the events narrated in the last chapter, Banborough was lounging in the office of the Windsor Hotel at Montreal. The course of events had run more smoothly for the party since the day they arrived in the city, weary and travel-stained with their adventurous trip. Montreal in general, and the manager of the Windsor in particular, were accustomed to see travellers from the States appear in all sorts of garbs and all kinds of conditions incident to a hasty departure, so their coming occasioned little comment; and as Cecil never did things by halves, they were soon rehabilitated and installed in the best apartments the hotel could offer.

The various members of the party, after the first excitement was over, had relapsed into a listless existence, which, however, was destined to be rudely disturbed, for while the Englishman's thoughts were wandering in anything but a practical direction, he was aroused from his reverie by a well-known voice, and, turning, found himself face to face with Marchmont.

"Well, who on earth would have thought of seeing you here?" exclaimed the journalist. "Have you fled to Canada to escape being lionised?"

"No," said Banborough cautiously, "not exactly for that reason."

"We couldn't imagine what had become of you," continued his friend. "You're the hero of the hour in New York, I can tell you, and 'The Purple Kangaroo' is achieving the greatest success of the decade."

"Oh, confound 'The Purple Kangaroo—'!"

"That's right; run it down. Your modesty becomes you. But seriously, old man, let me congratulate you. You must be making heaps out of it."

"Let's talk about something else," said Banborough wearily, for he was heartily sick of his unfortunate novel. "You ask me why I'm here. I'll return the compliment. Why are you?"

"Why," returned Marchmont, "you're partially to blame for it, you know. I'm after those Spanish conspirators. Of course you've heard the story?"

"No," said Banborough. "I haven't been in town for a fortnight. What is it?"

"Well, we arrested a lovely senorita on Fourteenth Street who was using the title of your novel as a password. I can tell you confidentially that there's no doubt that she's one of the cleverest and most unscrupulous female spies in the Spanish secret service; and while they were deciding where to take her, a stranger, who we're certain was one of the Secretaries of their Legation, eloped with her, Black Maria and all, with the recklessness of a true hidalgo. They were joined by a band outside the city, where they overcame a Justice of the Peace who arrested them, after a desperate resistance on his part. The story of this unequal battle was one of the finest bits of bravery we've had for years.

"After dining at a hotel at Yonkers they held up the waiter with revolvers and escaped. Similar audacities were perpetrated at the boundary-line between the United States and Canada, and in spite of the most intelligent and valiant efforts on the part of the police, aided by our own special corps of detectives, they've so far eluded us. Their leader's said to be a perfect devil, who, as I tell you, is certainly a Secretary of the Spanish Legation."

"How do you know that?" asked Banborough.

"Ah," said Marchmont, looking wise and shaking his head, "the Daily Leader has private sources of information. I wonder you've not heard anything of this."

"Yes," acquiesced the Englishman, "it is curious, isn't it?"

"But," continued his friend, "you haven't told me yet why you came to Montreal."

"Well," said Cecil, laughing, "I can at least assure you that my trip here has been much less eventful than the one you described."

"By the way," said the journalist, "have you seen the last editorial about your book in the Daily Leader?"

The Englishman shook his head.

"No? Well, here goes." And Marchmont began to read forthwith:

"'English conservatism has recently received a shock from the scion of Blanford, and the Bishop's son, in connection with 'The Purple Kangaroo,' has caused the British lion to hump himself into the hotbed of American politics—'"

"Oh, shut up!" said Cecil, with more force than politeness.

"Don't you like it?" exclaimed the journalist. "There's a column and a half more. I blue-pencilled a copy and sent it over to your old man."

Banborough groaned.

"But," continued Marchmont, "this isn't anything to what we'll do when we've hounded the Dons out of Canada."

"What?" cried the author.

"Yes," went on his friend. "We've complained to your Foreign Office, and within a week every Spanish conspirator will receive notice to quit Her Majesty's North American colonies on pain of instant arrest and deportation."

Cecil waited to hear no more, but, pleading an imperative engagement, rushed away to summon the members of his party to a hurried council of war in their private sitting-room. All were present with the exception of Miss Arminster, who had gone to spend the day at a convent in the suburbs, where she had been brought up as a child.

After an hour of useless debating the council ended, as Banborough might have foreseen from the first, in the party giving up any solution of the problem as hopeless, and putting themselves unreservedly in his hands to lead them out of their difficulties. Cecil, who felt himself ill equipped for the role of a Moses, jammed his hat on his head, lit his pipe, and, thrusting his hands in his pockets, said he was going out where he could be quiet and think about it.

"Going to the Blue Nunnery, he means," said Smith, laughing, and nudging Spotts.

The actor grunted. Apparently the author's attentions to the fascinating Violet did not meet with his unqualified approval.

An hour later Banborough stood in the grey old garden of the nunnery, the sister who was his guide silently pointing out to him the figure of the little actress, whose bright garments were in striking contrast to the severe simplicity of her surroundings. When the Englishman turned to thank the nun, she had disappeared, and he and Miss Arminster had the garden to themselves.

She stood with her back to him, bending over some roses, unconscious of his presence, and for a few moments he remained silent, watching her unobserved. The ten days which had passed had done much to alter his position towards her, and he had come to fully realise that he was honestly in love with this woman. Even the fact of her having been married at Ste. Anne de Beau Pre, which information he had elicited from her on the occasion of their pilgrimage to that shrine a few days before, had not served to cool his ardour. Indeed, the fact that his suit seemed hopeless made him all the more anxious to win her for his wife.

After he had been watching her for some minutes, a subtle intuition seemed to tell her of his presence, and he approached her as she raised her face from the roses to greet him.

"I came to see you—" he began, and paused, hardly knowing how to continue.

"Am I not then allowed even one holiday?" she asked.

"Is my presence so much of a burden?" he inquired, realising for the first time the full force of what her statement implied, as a hurried mental review of the past fortnight showed him that he had scarcely ever been absent from her side. Indeed, it no longer seemed natural not to be with her.

"Oh, I didn't mean to be rude," she said, "but I do like a day out of the world occasionally. You know, when I come back here I forget for the time that I've ever lived any other life than that which is associated with this dear old place."

He thought grimly that a young lady who had been married four times before she was twenty-five must have to undergo a considerable amount of mental obliteration.

"I think you'd tire of it very soon if you had to live here always," he said.

"I'm not sure," she replied. "I think—but of course you wouldn't understand that—only, life on the stage isn't all bright and amusing, and there are times when one simply longs for a quiet, old-world place like this."

"I believe you'd like Blanford," he suggested.

"I should love it," she assured him. "But what would your father say to me? I'd probably shock him out of his gaiters—if he wears them. Does he?"

"I suppose so," said Cecil. The fact was that the raiment of the Bishop of Blanford did not particularly interest him at that moment. He had more important things to talk about, things that had no connection whatsoever with the immediate future of the A. B. C. Company. Yet the mention of his father caused him to stop and think, and thought, in this case, proved fatal to sentiment. He thrust his hands into his pockets and addressed himself to the more prosaic topics of life, saying:

"My excuse for intruding on you is that our troubles are by no means over. The authorities, not content with driving us out of the United States, are preparing to order us out of Canada as well, and the question of where we are to go is decidedly perplexing."

"Oh, dear!" said the little woman, "I think I'll go into the convent after all."

"That settles the difficulty as far as you're concerned. Do you think they'd admit me?"

"Don't talk nonsense. What do the others say?"

"Oh, they say a good many things, but nothing practical, so I came to you for advice."

"Well, to speak frankly," she replied, "if I were you, I'd drop us all and run away home. It's much the easiest solution of the difficulty."

"Excuse me," he said. "I'm a gentleman, and besides—"

"Well, what?"

"Besides," he continued, thinking it better to be discreet, "I doubt if I should be welcome. I've a letter from the governor in my pocket, which I haven't yet had courage to open. I dare say it won't be pleasant reading; besides which, it's been chasing me round the country for the last five or six weeks, and must be rather ancient history."

"Look at it and see," she advised. "They may be ready to kill the fatted calf for you, after all."

"I'm afraid they do regard me rather in the light of a prodigal," he admitted. "However, here goes." And breaking the seal of the envelope, he read the letter aloud:

"THE PALACE, BLANFORD.

"MY DEAR SON:

"Do you realise that it is nearly a year since your Aunt Matilda and I have received news of you? This has been a source of great grief and pain to both of us, but it has not moved me to anger. It has rather caused me to devote such hours as I could spare from the preparation of my series of sermons on the miracle of Jonah to personal introspection, in the endeavour to discover, if possible, whether the cause of our estrangement lay in any defect of my own.

"It may be that you achieve a certain degree of spiritual enlightenment in producing a book entitled 'The Purple Kangaroo.' I hope so, though I have not read it. Nor do I wholly agree with your good aunt, who contends that the title savours too much of the Apocrypha, and I say nothing of the undesirable popularity you seem to have attained in the United States. I only ask you to come home.

"As a proof of her reconciliation, your aunt included a copy of your book in her last mission box to the Ojibway Indians. I shall always be glad to receive and make welcome any of your friends at the palace, no matter how different their tastes and principles may be to my own well-defined course of action.

"In the hope of better things,

"YOUR AFFECTIONATE FATHER."

"Of course you'll go," Violet said softly.

"Oh, I don't know about that," he replied.

"I do," she returned. "It's your duty. What a dear old chap he must be!—so thoroughly prosy and honest. I'm sure I should love him. I know just the sort of man he is. A downright Nonconformist minister of the midland counties, who was consecrated a Bishop by mistake."

Cecil paused a minute, thinking it over.

"How about the others?" he said.

"Ah, yes," she replied, "the others. But perhaps you don't class them as your friends."

"Oh, it isn't that," he answered. "Only I was wondering—"

"What the Bishop would say?" she asked, looking at him with a roguish smile. "Well, why not take him at his word and find out."

"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "I will! I believe you've hit on the very best possible solution of our difficulty. The episcopal palace at Blanford is absolutely the last place in the world where any one would think of looking for a political conspirator, and, by some freak of fortune, the police are entirely ignorant that I'm in any way connected with your flight."

"Good! then it's settled!" she cried. "And we'll all accompany you."

"Ye-es, only the governor wouldn't go within a hundred yards of a theatre, and my aunt calls actors children of—I forget whom—some one in the Old Testament."

"Belial," suggested Miss Arminster.

"That's it. How did you know?"

"You forget," she said, "I was brought up in a convent."

"It'll never do," he continued, "for them to suspect who you really are."

"Are we not actors?"

"Of course. We must have a dress rehearsal at once, and cast you for your parts. But there's Friend Othniel—"

"Ah, yes," she said. "He's impossible."

"We must drop him somehow."

"That's easily managed," she replied. "Pay his hotel bill, and leave him a note with a nice little cheque in it to be delivered after we've gone."

"Then we must get away quickly, or he'll suspect."

"The sooner the better."

"I noticed that there was a ship sailing from Montreal for England this afternoon."

"That'll just suit our purpose," she said. "Friend Othniel told me he was going to walk up Mount Royal after lunch and wouldn't be back before six."

"And you'll really come to Blanford?" he asked, taking her hand.

"Of course," she said. "Why should you doubt it?"

"Because," he replied, "it seems too good to be true. I was thinking, hoping, that perhaps I might persuade you to come there for good, and never go away."

"Ah," she interrupted him, "you're not going to say that?"

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because we've been such friends," she answered, "and it's quite impossible."

"Are you sure?"

"Perfectly. And oh, I didn't want you to say it."

"But can't we be friends still?" he insisted.

"With all my heart, if you'll forget this mad dream. It would have been impossible, even if I were free. Your people would never have accepted me, and I would only have been a drag on you."

"No, no!" he denied vehemently.

"There," she said, "we won't talk about it. You've been one of the best friends I ever had, and—what's in that locket you wear?"

"That?" he replied, touching a little blue-enamelled case that hung from his watch-chain. "It has nothing more interesting in it at present than a picture of myself. But I'd hoped—"

"Give it to me, will you," she asked, "in remembrance of to-day?"

He detached it silently from his chain, and, pressing it to his lips, placed it in her hand.

"I'll always wear it," she said.

There was an awkward silence for a moment, and then, pulling himself together, he remarked brusquely:

"I suppose we'd better be starting for town."

"I'll join you later," she replied. "I want to go to mid-day service in the little church next to this convent. Such a pretty little church. I was married there once."

"You were what? Are you really serious, Miss Arminster?"

"Perfectly," she answered, giving him a bewitching little smile as she tripped out of the garden.



PART II.

ENGLAND.



CHAPTER I.

IN WHICH MRS. MACKINTOSH ADMIRES JONAH.

"I think, Matilda, that you must have neglected to put any sugar in my tea," said the Bishop of Blanford, pushing his cup towards his sister, after tasting the first mouthful.

"You're quite right, Josephus, I did," she replied.

"And," continued his Lordship, who, being near-sighted, was poking about, after the manner of a mole, in the three-storied brass bird-cage which held the more substantial portion of the repast, "there doesn't seem to be any cake."

"You forget," said Miss Matilda sternly, "that it's an ember-day."

Her brother said nothing, and took a mouthful of the tea, which, like the morality of the palace, was strong and bitter. But his ample chest expanded with just the slightest sigh of regret, causing the massive episcopal cross of gold filigree, set with a single sapphire, which rested thereon, to rise and fall gently. Miss Matilda's hawklike eye saw and noted this as the first slight sign of rebellion, and she hastened to mete out justice swift and stern, saying:

"You remember, Josephus, that there's a special service at the mission church at five, at which I consider you ought to be present."

His Lordship had not forgotten it, or the circumstance that the afternoon was exceedingly hot, and that the mission church, which was situated in an outlying slum, was made of corrugated tin. The palace garden would have been infinitely preferable, and he knew that had he accepted sugarless tea without a murmur, his chaplain would have sweltered in his place. As it was, he submitted meekly, and his sister gazed at him with a satisfied expression of triumph across her bright green tea-cloth. If Miss Matilda had a weakness, it was for ecclesiastical tea-cloths. White was reserved for Sundays and feast-days; on ordinary occasions, at this time of the year, her ritual prescribed green.

They were seated in the garden of the palace, a peaceful Arcadia which it was difficult to realise was only separated from a dusty and concrete world by a battlemented wall which formed the horizon. The sky overhead was so blue and cloudless that it might have formed the background for an Italian landscape, and framed against it was the massive tower of the cathedral, its silver-greys darkening almost to black, as a buttress here and there brought it in shadow. Among its pinnacles a few wise old rooks flapped lazily in the still air, as much a part of their surroundings as the stately swans that floated on the stream which lapped the foot of the tower, while on all sides there stretched away a great sweep of that perfect verdure which only England knows.

"It's nearly two months since I last wrote to Cecil," said the Bishop, judging it wise to change the trend of the conversation, "and I've not heard a word."

"I'm sure I should be surprised if you had," snapped Miss Matilda. "And what your sainted Sarah would have felt, had she lived to see her son's disgraceful career, makes me shudder."

The Bishop started to sigh again. Then, thinking better of it, stopped. He had returned to Blanford from his rest-cure a week before, and apparently the air of Scotland had not proved as beneficial as he had expected.

"I believe that Cecil will come back to us," he said, ignoring his sister's last remark. "I told him that his friends would be welcome here in future, and I particularly mentioned that you'd put a copy of his book in your last missionary box."

"I hope you didn't neglect to say that I tore out all the pictures. A more scandalous collection—"

But she never finished her denunciation of the novel, for just at that moment the Bishop sprang to his feet with a glad cry of "Cecil!"

The young man came running across the lawn to meet his father, seizing him warmly by the hand, and having administered a dutiful peck to his aunt, turned to introduce the little group of strangers who had accompanied him.

"Father," he said, "these are my friends. On the strength of your letter I've taken the liberty of asking them to be my guests as well."

"They're very welcome to the palace," said the Bishop.

Cecil turned, and leading the two ladies forward, presented them to his father and his aunt. Miss Matilda swept them both with a comprehensive glance, and addressing Mrs. Mackintosh, remarked:

"Your daughter, I presume," indicating Miss Arminster. Whereupon the good lady coloured violently and denied the fact.

"Your niece?" insisted Miss Matilda, who was an excellent catechist, as generations of unfortunate children could bear witness.

"A young lady whom I'm chaperoning in Europe," replied Mrs. Mackintosh stiffly, in an effort to be truthful, and at the same time to furnish Violet with a desirable status in the party.

The tragedian was now brought forward.

"Allow me," said Banborough, in pursuance of a prearranged scheme of action—"allow me to introduce my friend Professor Tybalt Smith. You, father, are of course acquainted with his scholarly work on monumental brasses."

The Bishop naturally was not conversant with the book in question, because it had never been written, but he was entirely too pedantic to admit the fact; so he smiled, and congratulated the Professor most affably on what he termed "his well-known attainments," assuring him that he would find in the cathedral a rich field of research in his particular line of work.

Spotts was now brought up, and introduced as a rising young architect of ecclesiastical tendencies, which delighted his Lordship immensely as there was nothing he liked better than to explain every detail of his cathedral to an appreciative listener.

"I've a bit of old dog-tooth I shall want you to look at to-morrow," said his host, "and there's some Roman tiling in the north transept that absolutely demands your attention."

Spotts smiled assent, but was evidently bewildered, and seizing the first opportunity that offered, asked Cecil in a low voice if his father took him for a dentist or a mason.

"For a dentist or a mason?" queried Banborough. "I don't understand."

"Well, anyway, he said something about looking after his old dog's teeth and attending to his tiles."

Cecil exploded in a burst of laughter, saying:

"That's only the architectural jargon, man. You must play the game."

"Oh, I see," said the actor. "It's about his ramshackle old church. Well, I'll do my best—" But his assurances were cut short by the flow of his Lordship's conversation.

"As I was saying, Mr. Spotts," he continued, "I should be much interested to hear your American views on the subject of a clerestory."

"Sure," replied the actor, plunging recklessly. "I always believe in having four clear stories at least, and in New York and Chicago we run 'em up as high as—" But here a premonitory kick from Cecil brought his speech to an abrupt termination.

"Most astonishing," commented his Lordship. "I've never heard of more than one."

"Oh, our Western churches are chock-full of new wrinkles."

"Of new—what? I don't understand. Another cup' of tea for you, Mrs. Mackintosh? Certainly. We must pursue this subject at leisure, Mr. Spotts."

The party now turned their attention to the repast, and the Bishop proceeded to devote himself to Mrs. Mackintosh.

"I'm afraid," he said, when he had seen her sufficiently fortified with tea containing a due allowance of sugar, and supplemented by a plateful of cake which he had ordered to be brought as a practical substitute for the scriptural calf—"I'm afraid you will find our simple life at Blanford very dull."

"Dear sakes, no!" said that lady, hitching her chair up closer to the Bishop for a confidential chat—an action on her part which elicited a flashing glance of disapproval from Miss Matilda.

"I've heard all about you," she went on, "from your son Cecil. You don't mind if I call him Cecil, do you? for I'm almost old enough to be his mother. Well, as I was saying, when he told me about the cathedral and the beeches and the rooks and you, all being here, hundreds of years old—"

"Excuse me, madam," said his Lordship, "I'm hardly as aged as that."

"Of course I didn't mean you, stupid! How literal you English are!"

It is highly probable that in all the sixty years of his well-ordered existence the Bishop of Blanford had never been called "stupid" by anybody. He gasped, and the episcopal cross, and even the heavy gold chain by which it depended from his neck, were unduly agitated. Then he decided that he liked it, and determined to continue the conversation.

"When I thought of all that," said Mrs. Mackintosh, "I said to your son: 'Cecil,' said I, 'your father's like that old board fence in my back yard; he needs a coat of whitewash to freshen him up, and I'm going over to put it on.'"

"Cromwell," remarked the Bishop, "applied enough whitewash to Blanford to last it for several centuries. Indeed, we've not succeeded in restoring all the frescoes yet."

"Nonsense, man," said Mrs. Mackintosh, "you don't see the point at all. Now what do you take when your liver's out of order?"

"Really, madam," faltered the Bishop, thoroughly aghast at this new turn in the conversation, "I—er—generally consult my medical adviser."

"Well, you shouldn't!" said Mrs. Mackintosh with determination. "You should take what we call in my country a pick-me-up. Now I said to your son: 'I'm going to be a mental and moral pick-me-up for your father. What he needs is a new point of view. If you don't take care, he'll fossilise, and you'll have to put him in the British Museum.'"

The Bishop's reflections during this conversation were many and varied. What he was pleased to term his inner moral consciousness told him he ought to be shocked at its flippancy; the rest of his mental make-up was distinctly refreshed. Besides, a certain tension in the social atmosphere suggested that Miss Matilda was about to go forth to battle, so he smiled graciously, saying:

"It's certainly very considerate of you to undertake all this on my account, but I should not like to be in any one's debt, and I hardly see how I can repay my obligations."

"I'm just coming to that," said Mrs. Mackintosh. "I don't say that I shouldn't be doing a Christian act by taking you in hand, but I'm free to admit that I've a personal interest in the matter, for you're the one man in England I most wanted to meet."

"But what can there possibly be about me—" began the Bishop.

"It isn't about you," replied his guest. "It's about Jonah."

"Josephus," broke in the harsh voice of his sister, "the bell of the mission chapel has been ringing for some time."

The Bishop drew a long breath and formed a mighty resolve. At last he had met a person who took an intelligent interest in Jonah, a Biblical character to whose history he had devoted exhaustive research. It was a golden opportunity not to be let slip. So, turning to his sister and looking her squarely in the eyes, he replied boldly that he was quite aware of the fact.

"If you do not go at once you'll be late," remarked that lady.

"I've not the slightest intention of going at all," said the Bishop. "I'm talking to Mrs. Mackintosh, who is, it seems, much interested in Jonah."

There came a sound as of spluttering from the upraised tea-cup of Professor Tybalt Smith, and Miss Matilda gave a distinctly aggressive sniff.

"If you're not going, Josephus," she retorted, "I must send word to one of the chaplains, though after what you had said I naturally—" But there she paused, arrested by the incredible fact that for the first time in her experience her brother was not listening to what she was saying. Her silence commanded his attention.

"Oh," he replied, looking up vacantly, "do what you think proper," and turned again to Mrs. Mackintosh, who proceeded placidly with her theme.

"Of course," she said, "you hear a lot about seeing with the eye of faith, but I like to see with the eye of understanding, too, and I never yet sat under a preacher who was what I should call 'up to Jonah.' I read your book when it came out. It was one of the prizes they offered for selling on commission fifty packets of Tinker's Tannin Tea, and I've been wild to meet you ever since. I have been a-whaling, so to speak, for years, but I expect you to carry me safely into port."

"Madam," said the Bishop, "you overwhelm me." He was immensely flattered by her appreciative, if outspoken, commendation. "I'm now," he continued, "at work on a set of supplementary sermons on this very subject; and if it wouldn't be imposing too much on your good nature to let me read them to you, or parts of them—they embrace some six hundred pages."

Mrs. Mackintosh looked at him regretfully.

"Isn't there any more than that?" she said. "I wanted three volumes at least."

The Bishop beamed with gratification.

"I trust," he replied, "that they'll be worthy of your attention. But my treatment of the subject is—er—slightly doctrinal, and perhaps you're not a member of the Church of England."

"Well, no," said Mrs. Mackintosh. "I can't say as I am. I was baptised a Methodist, brought up in a Roman Catholic convent, finished at a Presbyterian boarding-school, and married before a Justice of the Peace to a Unitarian, and since I've been a widow I've attended a Baptist church regularly; but I don't believe I'd mind a few weeks of an Episcopalian, specially seeing he's a Bishop, which I haven't experienced before."

"I shall endeavour to do my best, madam," said his Lordship. "Perhaps I may even lead you—in time—"

"Well, I shouldn't be surprised but what you might," replied Mrs. Mackintosh, "but I mustn't take up all your time. I want you to know my little friend Miss Arminster. She's one of the nicest girls that ever was."

"I shall be delighted," said his Lordship. "Arminster," he continued reflectively. "Does she come from the Arminsters of Shropshire?"

Mrs. Mackintosh laughed.

"I'm sure I don't know," she replied, "but from the way her friends speak of her, you'd think she came from Noah's Ark."

"Dear me!" said the Bishop. "That's very curious."

"They call her the Leopard," she went on, "and I must say for my part that I'm 'most as fond of the Leopard as I am of Jonah's whale." And she rose and joined the group about the tea-table, for she did not wish to try Miss Matilda's patience too far.

"I don't know what you'll think of our quiet life. I fear it'll seem very strange to you," said his Lordship, addressing himself to Miss Arminster.

"I think it'll be jolly," she replied promptly, looking up at him playfully to see whether he would bear chaffing, "and," she added, after due deliberation, "I think you're a dear, and your uniform is just sweet. I always did love a uniform. I used to be awfully gone, as a child, on a policeman at the corner of our block, but you're much more nicely dressed than he was."

His Lordship started to say something crushing in regard to the sanctity of ecclesiastical trappings, but another glance at the bewitching little figure that confronted him caused him to remark instead that he was glad she approved of him, and that he would try to take better care of her than even a guardian of the law.

"Oh, I'm afraid I've said something shocking!" she exclaimed in a delightfully naive manner, "and I did mean to be so good and decorous. I'm sure I'll need a lot of teaching."

"I shall be delighted to undertake the task," he replied gallantly. "Suppose we begin by going to evensong. Would you like to do so?"

"Rather," she returned; "but I'm afraid," looking at her travelling-costume, "that I'm hardly dressed for the part—I mean the occasion."

"Dear me!" said the Bishop, scrutinizing her keenly, "it seems to be a very pretty gown."

"Oh, that's all right," she said. "Then we'll go at once."

"So we shall," he replied, "and you shall sit in the stalls."

"How jolly!" she exclaimed. "I almost always have to sit in the balcony."

"Really?" said his Lordship. "You don't say so. But from what Mr. Spotts says, I should judge that the architecture of American churches was novel." And they walked across the lawn to the cathedral.

A few moments later, Miss Matilda, having dismissed her guests to their rooms, found herself alone with her nephew.

"Well," she said, turning on him sharply, "perhaps at last you'll condescend to tell me who these friends of yours are?"

"They're a party of ladies and gentlemen with whom I've been travelling in America," Cecil replied. "And as we'd agreed to join forces for the rest of the summer, I'd no option but to invite them here as my guests. The gentlemen I've already introduced to you—"

"Oh, the gentlemen!" snapped his aunt. "I've no concern about them. It's the women I—"

"The ladies, Aunt Matilda."

"The ladies, then. Your father, in what he is pleased to call his wisdom, has seen fit to allow you to introduce these persons into his house. I'm sure I hope he won't regret it! But I must insist on knowing something about the people whom I'm entertaining."

"As I've told you already," he replied very quietly, "they're ladies whom I've met in America. I might also add that they've good manners and are uniformly courteous."

Miss Matilda tilted her nose till its tip pointed straight at the spire of the cathedral, and, without any reply, swept past him into the house.

Dinner, that night, in spite of his aunt's efforts to the contrary, was an unqualified success. The Bishop hailed with joy any interruption in the monotony of his daily life, and made himself most agreeable, while his guests seconded him to the best of their ability.

The meal being over, his Lordship proposed a rubber of whist, a relaxation of which he was very fond, but which, in the reduced state of his family, he was seldom able to enjoy. Mrs. Mackintosh and Smith, as the two best players of the party, expressed themselves as willing to take a hand, and Miss Matilda made up the fourth.

"You'll excuse me," said his Lordship apologetically to Mrs. Mackintosh, "if we play only for threepenny points. Were I a curate I could play for sixpence, but in my position the stakes are necessarily limited."

"You don't ever mean to say," exclaimed the old lady, "that you're a gambling Bishop!"

"My brother," interrupted Miss Matilda, "is a pattern of upright living to his day and generation. But of course if you're incapable of understanding the difference between a sinful wager of money and the few pence necessary to keep up the interest of the game—"

"Gambling is gambling, to my mind," said Mrs. Mackintosh, "whether you play for dollars or doughnuts!"

"The point seems well taken," remarked the Bishop meditatively. "It's certainly never struck me in that light before; but if you think—"

"I think," said the old lady decidedly, "that it's lucky for you that there are no whales in Blanford!"

Miss Matilda threw down her cards.

"If I'm to be called a gambler under my own brother's roof," she said, "I shall refuse to play. Besides I've a headache." And she rose majestically from the table.

"But, my dear," began the Bishop meekly, "if we cannot find a fourth hand—"

"If Miss Banborough doesn't feel up to playing," came the sweet tones of Violet's voice, "I'll be delighted to take her place." And a moment later she was ensconced at the table.

The Bishop's sister retired to a corner with the largest and most aggressive volume of sermons she could find, and sniffed loudly at intervals all the evening. And when at ten o'clock, in response to the summons of an impressive functionary clad in black and bearing a wand surmounted by a silver cross, the little party filed out to evening devotions in the chapel, Miss Matilda gathered her skirts around her as if she feared contagion.

"I'm afraid of that old cat," Mrs. Mackintosh confided to Violet, when they had reached the haven of their apartments. "I'm sure she suspects us already; and if we're not careful, she'll find us out."



CHAPTER II.

IN WHICH THE ENEMY ARRIVES.

"I say, boss," remarked the tramp, as he paused for a moment in the process of stuffing himself to repletion with cold game-pie, "this is a rum trip, and no mistake."

"What's that got to do with you?" retorted Marchmont sharply, appropriating the remaining fragments of the pasty to his own use.

The two men were seated in the shady angle of a ruined buttress, a portion of a stately abbey, which in pre-Norman days had flourished at a spot some half-dozen miles from the site of Blanford.

"Well," said the tramp, "if this ain't a wild-goose chase I dunno what you calls it. Here you've gone an' took me away from my happy home, an' brought me across the ragin' Atlantic, an' dumped me in a moth-eaten little village where there ain't nothin' fit to drink, all because I happened to chum with a Bishop."

"You seem to forget," said Marchmont, "that it was you who came to me, offering to sell your friends and their secrets for a sufficient remuneration."

"So I did," said the tramp; "but it was revenge, that's what it was—revenge. I was deserted in a furrin land, with just my board-bill paid, and not a penny to bless myself with."

"Ah," said Marchmont. "That's the reason, I suppose, why you came from Montreal to New York in a parlour car."

The tramp sighed despondently, saying:

"Now whoever told you that, boss?"

"Nobody. I found the Pullman check in your coat-pocket when I was looking for my diamond ring, which you'd absent-mindedly placed there."

"Humph!" replied the other. "There ain't no foolin' you!"

"I should be a pretty poor journalist if there were," said his employer. "Now give me the story again, and see if you can get it straight."

"Well, there ain't nothin' much to tell, 'cept I was carried off by them Spanish conspirators in mistake for a lady, which I in no-wise resembles, an' the bloke as was the head of the gang was allus called the Bishop, and a pretty rum Bishop he was."

"Never mind about his qualifications," interrupted Marchmont shortly; adding to himself, "That explains his son's presence in Montreal."

"Well, this Bishop," continued the tramp, "used to talk about his palace at Blanford; and when the party give me the go-by, I gathered from the porter as took their traps that they'd gone to England; and the elevator-boy, he heard the Bishop say to the little actress as they'd be as safe at the palace as they would anywhere. And then I come on to New York and blew it into you."

"Yes," said Marchmont, "and I've given you a first-class passage to England, paid your board and lodging, and kept you full for the best part of three weeks; and what do I get out of it?"

"I admit as we haven't had much results as yet," said the tramp. "But now things is goin' to hum. The Bishop and his whole gang's coming over to these very ruins to-day."

"How did you find that out?" demanded the journalist.

"Footman up to the palace told me. I give him a little jamboree last night at the 'Three Jolly Sailor-boys.'"

"Yes, and had to be carried home dead-drunk. Nice one you are to keep a secret."

"Well, I was only a-doin' me duty," said the tramp in an aggrieved tone of voice, "and if they don't know you're after 'em, and you should happen to be inspectin' the ruins at the same time as they are, you could get chummy with 'em without half tryin'."

"I'll attend to that," said the newspaper man. "I've just had a cable from the Daily Leader telling me to hustle if I want to get that position, and I've got to do something, and do it quick. But it'll never do for you to be seen. Once they know we're together, the game's up. I can't have you larking round with the servants either. You'll spoil the whole show. You've got to go back to Dullhampton this afternoon."

"What! that little one-horse fishing-town?"

"Yes, that's where you're wanted. It's the nearest port to Blanford, and it's where they'll try and get out of the country if they're hard pressed. You just stay there and keep your eyes open till you hear from me."

The tramp growled surlily, and reluctantly prepared to obey.

"Now, then," said Marchmont shortly, "get a move on. Yes, you can take the provender with you. It'll help to keep your mouth shut."

As the tramp slouched round the corner and out of sight, his master stretched himself comfortably on the ground, and supporting his head on one arm, with his straw hat tilted over his eyes to protect them from the sun, he proceeded to go peacefully to sleep.

Scarcely had the journalist composed himself to slumber, when the ruins were invaded by the party from the palace. It was now about a month since Cecil and his friends had arrived at Blanford, and though this expedition to the old abbey had been often discussed, one thing and another had intervened to prevent its being put into execution.

After her first burst of antagonism, Miss Matilda had settled down to a formal hospitality which was, if anything, more disconcerting. Tybalt Smith alone had achieved a favourable position in her eyes, and this only as the result of a very considerable amount of flattery and attention. At first his friends were at a loss to account for his attitude, but as time went on it appeared that the tragedian had not exerted himself for nothing. "The dear Professor" frequently had his breakfast in bed when he was too lazy to get up, and Miss Matilda considered the delicate state of his health required the daily stimulus of a pint of champagne. He also had the exclusive use of her victoria in the afternoon, and even if this did necessitate an occasional attendance at missionary meetings and penny readings, it was after all but a fair return for value received. On this occasion he had begged off going to the picnic, and was spending a luxurious day at the palace, waited on by the Bishop's sister.

The party, having arrived at the abbey, promptly separated to explore the ruins, his Lordship gallantly offering to play the part of cicerone to the ladies. Miss Violet, however, for reasons of her own, preferred seclusion and a quiet chat with Spotts to any amount of architectural antiquities, so her host was enabled to devote his entire time to Mrs. Mackintosh.

"Does it strike you," remarked the Bishop, a few moments later, pausing in his wanderings to inspect critically a fragment of Roman brick—"does it strike you how absolutely peaceful this spot is?"

"Well," returned Mrs. Mackintosh, "I don't know as it does. I should have said your palace was about as good a sample of all-round peacefulness as there is going."

"Ha," said his Lordship, "it hadn't occurred to me."

"That's just like you men. You never know when you're well off. Now with your palace and Jonah you ought to be content."

The Bishop sighed.

"Dear lady," he said, "I admit my faults. The palace I indeed possess temporarily, but Jonah—ah, what would Jonah be without you! If I have left my work once in the past month to ask your advice, I have left it a hundred times."

"You have," admitted Mrs. Mackintosh with decision.

"Then it is to you that Jonah owes his debt of gratitude, not to me. You have lightened my labour in more senses of the word than one."

"Well, I've had a very pleasant visit. Blanford's a little paradise."

The Bishop sighed again, and remarked:

"Paradise I have always regarded as being peaceful."

"Yes," acquiesced his companion reflectively, "with all that Jonah went through, I don't remember as he had an unmarried sister."

There was silence for a moment, and then his Lordship abruptly changed the subject.

"What a charming, bright, fresh young life is Miss Arminster's! She dances through the world like—like—er—" And he paused for a simile.

"Like a grasshopper," suggested Mrs. Mackintosh, with marked disapproval in her tones. The Bishop had a trivial, not to say frivolous, strain in his nature which seemed to her hardly in accord with his exalted position.

"No, dear lady," objected his Lordship, "not a grasshopper. Decidedly not a grasshopper; say—like a ray of sunshine."

"Violet's a good girl," remarked his companion, "a very good girl, but in most things she is still a child, and the serious side of life doesn't appeal to her. I dare say she'd go to sleep if you read to her about Jonah."

"She did," admitted the Bishop; "but then of course," he added, wishing to palliate the offence, "it was a very hot day. I suppose, however, you are right. Serious things do not interest her—and that is—I should say—we are serious."

"I am," said Mrs. Mackintosh, "and at your time of life you ought to be; and if we stand here any longer looking at that chunk of brick in the broiling sun, we'll both be as red as a couple of beets."

No amount of sentiment could be proof against a statement of this sort, and they moved on.

Violet and Spotts had meantime sat themselves down on a convenient tombstone to while away the interval till luncheon was served.

"There are lots of things I want to talk to you about, Alvy," began the little actress, "and I never get the chance."

"Well, fire away," he replied. "You've got it now."

"In the first place," she said, "I don't like the way things are going here."

"At the palace, you mean?"

"Yes. We're not aboveboard. We're shamming all the while. Besides, we're doing nothing in our profession."

"It's better than doing time in prison."

"It isn't straightforward, and I don't like it," she went on.

"Neither do I," he returned; "but there are other things I like less."

"Such as?"

"Well, people falling in love with you, for instance."

"Oh, Cecil. He received his conge before we left America."

"I said people."

"You don't mean the Bishop?"

Spotts nodded.

"But he's such a dear funny old thing!" she cried.

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Why, he might be my grandfather."

"He's as frisky as a two-year-old," remarked the actor.

"And finally," continued Violet, not noticing the interruption, "his old cat of a sister wouldn't let him."

"Worms have turned, and straws have broken camels' backs before now," persisted Spotts.

"Don't you call me names, sir! Worms and straws, indeed! What next, I should like to know!"

"If you don't take care, you'll be called his Lordship's 'leopard.'"

She burst out laughing.

"Nonsense!" she cried. "Why, I actually believe you're becoming jealous."

"Not a bit of it," he said. "I'd trust you, little girl, through thick and thin."

"I know you would, Alvy, and I'd rather marry you—well, ten times, before I'd marry a lord or a bishop once."

"I know it, old girl, I know it!" cried Spotts ecstatically, and slipped his arm round her waist.

"Oh, do be careful," she protested. "Just think, if any one should see us! I'm sure I heard a footstep behind us."

They looked up, and saw Cecil above them, standing on the sill of an old ruined window.

He had not heard their words, but he had seen Spotts's embrace, and realised bitterly how little chance he stood against such a combination of Apollo and Roscius.

The month which had intervened since his return to Blanford had not been an altogether happy time for the Bishop's son. The pain of Miss Arminster's refusal still rankled within him, and that young lady's actions had not done much to soothe it. Had she comported herself with a resigned melancholy, he could have borne his own sufferings with fortitude. But, on the contrary, she had, he considered, flirted most outrageously with Mr. Spotts. Indeed Cecil was already strongly of the opinion that the actor was trying to succeed where he had failed—a course of action which he thought quite justifiable on his, Banborough's, part, but highly reprehensible on the part of any one else. Matters had now culminated. Fate had brought the three together at this inopportune moment, and as it was manifestly impossible not to say something, Cecil laid himself out to be agreeable, and Miss Arminster, who was naturally aware of the awkwardness of his position, did her best to promote conversation, while Spotts almost immediately cut the Gordian knot by excusing himself on the plea of looking after the lunch.

"Well," she said, "what's the latest news from Spain?"

"It seems to me that the war must be almost over," he replied. "Now that Santiago's fallen, and Cervera's fleet's destroyed, Spain has no alternative but to yield."

"Ah," she murmured, "then we'll be free once more."

"Has your exile been so irksome to you?" he asked.

"Oh," she returned, "I didn't mean it that way, really. Believe me, I'm not ungrateful. Blanford's just sweet, and your father's an old dear."

"Yes," he retorted, laughing. "I notice you're doing your best to usurp Mrs. Mackintosh's place in his affections."

"That's not from pique, it's from charity," she replied. "I've been trying to rescue her from Jonah."

"I'm afraid my governor must be an awful bore," he said.

"Oh, but he's so sweet and simple with it all," she objected. "I'm really growing to be awfully fond of him."

"I think he's growing to be awfully fond of you," said his son.

Miss Arminster laughed merrily.

"Don't you fancy me as a step-mamma?" she queried. "But, joking apart, I'm afraid even Blanford would pall on me after a while. It isn't my first visit here, you see. I was on a tour through these counties three years ago."

"That's how you came to know about my father, I suppose."

"Yes," she said. "I had him pointed out to me, and you look a good deal alike. Besides, the name's not common."

"I'm glad you liked Blanford well enough to come back to it."

"Oh," she returned, looking up at him with a roguish smile, "this section of the country has other associations for me."

"I was waiting for that," he retorted. "In which of the neighbouring towns were you married?"

"The one nearest here," she replied. "I think we can just see the spire of the church over the trees. But how did you know?"

"I inferred it as a matter of course," he said banteringly, "but I'm only joking."

"But I'm not," she returned.

"Do you really mean that you were married over there?" he asked, pointing to the distant church.

"Yes," she replied. "The third of June, 1895."

"I say, you know," he said, "I think you might have married me once in a way, as I had asked you."

"Mr. Banborough," she replied stiffly, drawing herself up, "you forget yourself."

"I beg your pardon," he returned humbly. "Only as American divorce laws are so lax, I thought—"

"The divorce laws of my country are a disgrace, and nothing would ever induce me to avail myself of them. Besides, marriage, to me, is a very serious and solemn matter, and I can't permit you to speak about it flippantly, even by way of a joke."

Cecil picked up a handful of pebbles and began throwing them meditatively at the fragment of an adjacent arch. The more he saw of Miss Arminster, the greater mystery she became. By her own admission, she had been married at least half a dozen times, which, were he to accept as real the high moral standard which she always assumed, must imply a frightful mortality among her husbands. But then she neither seemed flippant nor shallow, and her serious attitude towards the sacrament of marriage appeared wholly incompatible with a matrimonial experience which might have caused a Mormon to shudder. Anyway, she wasn't going to marry him, and he turned to the discussion of more fruitful subjects.

"How's Spotts getting on with his studies in architecture?" he asked.

"I should think he'd learned a good deal," she replied. "Your father hasn't left a stone of his own cathedral unexplained, and I imagine he'll put him through his paces over this abbey."

"Poor Spotts! I'm afraid he's had a hard row to hoe," said Cecil; "but, anyway, it'll keep him out of mischief."

"You must be very careful what you say about him to me," she replied. "I won't hear one word against him, for we're very old friends."

"So I should infer," he retorted, "from what I've just seen. I never was allowed to put my arm—"

"How dare you!" she cried, rising, really angry this time. "I—" Then turning to the Bishop, who arrived very opportunely, she exclaimed:

"Won't you rescue me, please? Your son's becoming awfully impertinent!"

"Then," said his Lordship gallantly, "my son must be taught better manners. If he cannot show himself worthy of such a charming companion, we'll punish him by leaving him entirely alone."

Certainly his father was coming on, thought Cecil. But if Miss Arminster tried to take advantage of his dotage to forge another link in her matrimonial chain, he, Banborough, would have a word to say on the subject.

"I wish to tell you, my dear," began his Lordship as they walked away, leaving Cecil disconsolate, "of a very nice invitation I've received for the rest of the week. Lord Downton is to call for me in his yacht at Dullhampton to-morrow, and has asked me to join his party and to bring some lady with me to make the number even."

"Oh, how jolly that'll be—for Miss Matilda!" said the artful Violet.

"Humph!—ye-es," replied the Bishop. "I hardly think my sister could leave the palace just at this time."

"Perhaps," suggested his guest, "yachting doesn't agree with her. Has she ever tried it before?"

"She has," replied the Bishop, with a certain asperity.

"Ah, poor thing!" said Miss Arminster. "It must have taken away from your pleasure to feel that she was suffering such great discomfort on your account."

"Lord Downton didn't specify my sister. He only said 'some lady'; and so I thought if you—"

"Oh, that's just sweet of you!" exclaimed his companion. "I'm sure I should adore yachting. It's something I've always wanted to do."

"Then we'll consider it settled," said the Bishop.

"But Miss Matilda?"

"Ah, yes," admitted his Lordship. "That's just the trouble. You see my dilemma."

"Of course!" Violet responded promptly, understanding that he wished to be helped out. "If your sister knew you were going, she'd feel it her duty to accompany you, and the trip would be spoilt for you by her sufferings. So, out of your affection for her, you think it would be better if we were just quietly to slip off to-morrow and send her a wire from Dullhampton."

The Bishop was delighted. Miss Matilda never accepted him at his own valuation.

"So, just on your account," continued his companion demurely, "I won't say a word, though I hate any form of concealment."

"H'm—naturally," said the Bishop.

"But since it's for your dear sister's sake—"

"We'll take the eleven-fifty train to-morrow," replied his Lordship.

And here his remarks were cut short from the fact that in suddenly rounding a corner he had planted his foot on the recumbent form of Marchmont.

"Hullo!" said that gentleman, sitting up, and adding, as he rubbed his eyes to get them wider open, "permit me to inform you that this part of the ground is strictly preserved."

"Who are you, sir?" demanded the Bishop.

"Come," said the stranger cheerfully, "we'll make a bargain. I'll tell you who you are, if you'll tell me who I am."

"I do not see how that is possible—" began his Lordship.

"Well, I'll begin," said Marchmont. "You're the Bishop of Blanford and I'm your son's greatest benefactor."

"Really, you surprise me. May I enquire how you've benefited him?"

"I made the fame of his book, 'The Purple Kangaroo.' I've been sending you my editorials on the subject for some weeks past."

"Are you the person who wrote those scandalous leaders which have been forwarded to me from America?" demanded the Bishop.

"I thought you'd remember them," said the journalist. "They're eye-openers, aren't they?"

His Lordship drew himself up and put on his most repressive manner, but Marchmont babbled on serenely.

"The last time I saw Cecil he said to me: 'Whenever you come to England, Marchmont, you just drop round to the palace, and we'll make things hum.' So, having a chance for a little vacation, I jumped on board a steamer, crossed to Southampton, and biked up-country, doing these ruins on the way. I meant to have presented myself at the palace this afternoon in due form and a swallow-tailed coat, but I'm just as much pleased to see you as if I'd been regularly introduced."

"You're one of the most consummate liars I ever knew," remarked Cecil, who, hearing voices, had strolled over to see what it was all about.

"Put it more mildly, my dear fellow," replied the American. "Call me a journalist, and spare your father's feelings."

"Well, now you're here, what do you intend to do?" demanded Banborough.

"Do?" said Marchmont. "Why, I'm going to put up for a week at your 'Pink Pig,' or your 'Azure Griffin,' or whatever kind of nondescript-coloured animal your local hostelry boasts, and study your charming cathedral. But, in the first place, I think we'd better have some lunch. I'm as hungry as a bear."

"I fear we've scarcely provided for an extra guest," returned Cecil frigidly. The journalist was the very last person he wanted to see at Blanford, and he did not take any pains to disguise the fact.

Marchmont, however, was not to be snubbed, and remarking cheerfully that there was always enough for one more, calmly proceeded in the direction of the hampers. Once there, he constituted himself chef and butler forthwith, and moreover proved so efficient in both capacities that, irritated as his friend was at his self-assurance, he could not but express his appreciation.

Marchmont, having started the rest of the people on their lunch and made all feel at their ease, turned on his journalistic tap for the benefit of the Bishop, and plied the old gentleman with such a judicious mixture of flattery and amusing anecdote that, by the time the repast was over, his Lordship was solemnly assuring his son, much to that young gentleman's disgust, that he was indeed fortunate in possessing such a delightful friend, and that he might invite Mr. Marchmont to the palace if he liked.

"Quite so," said Cecil. "I suppose you remember his article in the Daily Leader, in which he alluded to you as a 'consecrated fossil'?"

"H'm!" said the Bishop. "Really, the accommodation at the inn is very good, and perhaps, with so many guests, it would be asking too much of your aunt."

"What does all this mean?" asked Spotts of Banborough when a convenient opportunity offered.

The Bishop's son shrugged his shoulders, replying:

"It means mischief."



CHAPTER III.

IN WHICH PEACE IS PROPOSED AND WAR DECLARED.

Marchmont stood on the lawn before the palace, on the morning after his arrival, critically inspecting that structure; his feet stretched wide apart, his hands in his pockets, and his hat on the back of his head.

Cecil, emerging from breakfast, sighted his enemy and made haste to join him.

"Jolly old rookery you've got," remarked the reporter.

"Yes," said Banborough. "It was a monastery originally. They turned it into a bishop's palace about the reign of Henry VIII."

"I know that style," said the American. "Nice rambling ark, two stories high, and no two rooms on the same level. Architect built right out into the country till he got tired, and then turned round and came back. Obliged to have a valet to show you to your room whether you're sober or not."

"I didn't know," said Cecil drily, "that you possessed an extensive acquaintance in ecclesiastical circles in this country."

"Oh, yes," said Marchmont, "I served as valet for six months to a bishop while I was gathering materials for my articles on 'English Sees Seen from the Inside.'"

"Was it a financial success?" queried Banborough.

"No," admitted the reporter regretfully, "it sold the paper splendidly, but was stopped at the second article at the request of the American ambassador."

"Did you favour us with a visit?"

"I hadn't that honour."

"If you had done so you would probably have slept in the rooms we give to our American guests in the new part of the house."

"How old is that?" queried the journalist.

"About eight hundred years," replied Cecil, "and the walls are four feet thick."

"I know," said the reporter, "It's appalling. That sort of thing always upsets me. It seems so out of keeping with the Daily Leader."

"Look here, Marchmont, why have you come to Blanford?" demanded Banborough, abruptly changing the conversation.

"To have the joy of your society," returned the journalist.

"If that were really the case I'd be delighted to see you," said the Englishman. "But you're on the track of these unfortunate people who are my guests; and if you make things disagreeable for them I shan't have the slightest compunction in forbidding you the house."

The American, apparently ignoring the other's frankness, remarked:

"So you admit they're conspirators?"

"I admit nothing of the kind. They're perfectly innocent of the charge you bring against them, and you've been making an awful ass of yourself, if you only knew it."

"Ah, thank you. But if this is the case why didn't you mention the fact to me in Montreal?"

"I had my reasons."

"And why are all these people received as honoured guests in your father's palace?"

"That, if you'll permit me to say so, Marchmont, is a matter that doesn't concern you."

"Everything concerns me. Not that I expect you to see that point of view. But to put it another way. Considering all I've done to increase the sale of your book, won't you do me a good turn and tell me what you know about this affair?"

"I wish the confounded book had never sold a copy!" burst out Banborough. "And I'll not say one word to the detriment of my friends!"

"Then it is to be war?" queried the journalist, rolling a cigarette.

"Not so far as I'm concerned," replied his host. "Why don't you let bygones be bygones? A truce between the United States and Spain may be declared any day, and then—"

"Then my great scoop will be lost for ever. What would the public care about conspirators if there were no war?"

"Exactly what I say," said Cecil. "So let's drop the whole matter."

"Not much!" cried the journalist. "It's my last chance. And if you won't help me—why, I must help myself."

"What do you wish me to do?"

"Turn 'em out of Blanford."

"Impossible!"

"But your father?"

"How dare you mention my father's name in this connection? I won't have him dragged into publicity to sell your dirty rag of a newspaper!" Cecil exploded, thoroughly beside himself at the thought of such a dreadful possibility.

The journalist nodded his head gravely. Banborough's fierce defence of the Bishop he attributed to far other grounds than those on which it was really based. It justified him to the tramp's suspicions that his Lordship was actually connected with the plot.

"Well," he said, with a fair pretence of backing down, "there's no need of getting so hot about it. Of course I don't want to make myself disagreeable."

"Neither do I," replied his host. "Only we may as well understand each other. You're quite welcome to come to the palace as long as you remember to be a gentleman before you are a journalist. But if you forget it, I'll be forced to treat you as you deserve," and turning on his heel, he left Marchmont chewing the ends of his sandy moustache with a grim avidity that boded ill for the peace of the Bishop and his household.