“Sylvia Farquharson?” he echoed, musing. “I’ve heard the name. Oh! I have it. That was the lady in the sedan-chair your grace rescued yonder in Paul’s Yard on the day we met. Aye, aye. I heard her named at the time. A baggage of a play actress from the Duke’s House, I think. But what has she to do with us?” “Something I think--unless the stars are wrong. And the stars are never wrong. They stand immutable and true in a false and fickle world. It is written in them--as I have already told you--that we were to meet again, you and I, and be jointly concerned in a fateful matter with one other. That other, my friend, is this same Sylvia Farquharson.” He rose, casting off all reserve at last, and his pleasant voice was thickened by the stress of his emotions. “You behold in me a man exerting vast power for good and ill. There are in life few things, however great, that I desire without being able to command them. Sylvia Farquharson is one of these few things. With affectations of prudery this wanton keeps me on the rack. That is where I require your help.” He paused. The Colonel stared at him round-eyed. A faint colour stirred in his haggard cheeks. At last he spoke, in a voice that was cold and level. “Your grace has hardly said enough.” “Dullard! What more is to be said? Don’t you understand that I mean to make an end of this situation?--to conquer the prudish airs with which this wanton jade repels me?” “Faith! I think I understand that well enough.” Holles laughed a little. “What I don’t understand is my part in this--a doxy business of this kind. Will not your grace be plain?” “Plain? Why, man, I want her carried off for me.” They sat conning each other in silence now, the Colonel’s face utterly blank, so that the Duke looked in vain for some sign of how he might be taking this proposal. At last his lips curled in a rather scornful smile, and his voice drawled with a mildly humorous inflection. “But in such a matter your grace’s own vast experience should surely serve you better than could I.” In his eagerness, the Duke took him literally, never heeding the sarcasm. “My experience will be there to guide you.” “I see,” said Holles. “I’ll tell you more precisely how I need you--where you can serve me.” And Buckingham proceeded to inform him of the well-equipped house in Knight Ryder Street, which he now desired Holles to take in his own name. Having taken it, he was to make the necessary arrangements to carry the girl thither on the evening of Saturday next, after the last performance at the Duke’s House. “Taking what men you need,” the Duke concluded, “it should be easy to waylay and capture her chair as it is being borne home. We will consider that more closely if the service is one that you are disposed to accept.” The Colonel’s face was flushed. He felt his gorge rising. At last his anger mastered him, and he heaved himself up to confront the handsome profligate who dared in cold blood to make him this proposal.