“By no means. There is one whom I know to be sincere.” “But, do you really, Mr. Barclugh, enjoy your sojourn in America?” insisted Mollie. “I would leave to-morrow if it were not for the _tete-a-tetes_ that I have with one whom I meet too seldom.” [Illustration: Mollie Greydon.] “That is exasperating, Mr. Barclugh. Who can it be? Is it Mrs. Arnold?” sallied Mollie. “Oh! no! no! She is too imperious. Can you not guess?” and Barclugh looked so appealingly into Mollie’s eyes that her pulse seemed to cease. She grew pale and could scarcely venture a reply. “I would not dare to guess,” she said softly, “for fear that I might be mistaken.” The Secretary of Congress, Charles Thompson, came up to Mollie at this juncture to bid her good-bye and she was drawn into the duties of bidding the guests farewell; Roderick Barclugh left Dorminghurst that afternoon, determined to win the heart of Mollie Greydon; but little did he know what stirring events would intervene before he could offer himself to the one he loved. CHAPTER IV “That game, Charles, last night, upset our plans, and we must recoup our fortunes from government,” suggested young Lord Carlisle bitterly, on the morning after he had lost ten thousand pounds sterling at a single cast at hazard in Brooks’ Club. He was addressing his two cronies, Charles Fox and George Selwyn. Both were members of Parliament and included within the inner Cabinet and Councils of the government of Lord North. Both were powerful in the set that obtained favors (for the chosen few) from the monarch, George III. In order that no one might observe them, the three were alighting from the chariot of Lord Carlisle and entering the “Old Cock” Tavern, a resort for literary drudges and solicitors of Temple Court. They entered at the side entrance in Apollo Court, just off Fleet Street. They had come directly from the gaming-table, dejected and desperate from heavy loss, to a place where they could retire securely to one of the cosy corners for breakfast and repose. Having been all night in the great room at Brooks’, nerved to high tension at the hazard of great stakes, this sorry set of cronies sought refreshment and a reckoning of their shattered fortunes. One of those reposeful havens for the “weary and heavy laden,” in old London’s jaded life, now appealed to these gaming spirits and leaders of government.