"James, Duke of Monmouth, madame, who else? And were there a doubt, the contents dispel it." "The contents?" "Aye. I have already searched it. It contains five letters, so precious, madame, that it would seem he bore them ever about his person. How they came here is a mystery; he must have lost them in the hurry of his flight. ’Twas indeed irony of fate that he should lose them just in the time of need." "But what are these letters?" interrupted Ralph impatiently. "Three are from Lady—from a woman." "You did not read them!" interposed Barbara quickly. "Nay, madame, they are sacred. We will leave them to the grave Nature herself has prepared." He tore them in pieces and scattered them slowly into the ditch. Then as the last scrap of paper settled into the shadow of the gorse, he muttered softly: "There lies, I doubt not, the story of a hopeless love." "But the others!" interposed Ralph sharply. "The others!" Here Captain Protheroe laughed quickly, all the excitement returning to his face. "Ah! the old fox, how he duped us! These other letters are from no less a person than George Jeffreys, Lord Chief Justice of England." "From Jeffreys, and to the Duke?" "Even so. Faith! I knew the scare at the Duke’s invasion was great, but I never dreamed ’twas so serious as to lead so cautious a toad as Jeffreys thus far to commit himself." "Read!" commanded Barbara, in a maze of thought. So Captain Protheroe again unfolded the letters and read their contents aloud, while his companions listened with breathless eagerness. _To his Grace the Duke of Monmouth by the hand of my Secretary Stephen Jewars:_