"I think so. I can induce him to lead Sir Geoffrey to his doom. All depends, however, on Barry getting back. If he returns not by Sunday afternoon we may fail." "He will return," Anne said. "A Redriff lugger which he met outside at sea has come in with a letter from him, saying that he has distributed almost all his men amongst the ships of war at the Nore and Chatham; that soon he will be back. Perhaps before Sunday." "So! That is well. There is, however, one other thing to do. Namely, to get Barry to the Marshes, so that thereby we may secure the other. Or rather _keep_ him in them. For if you and your lady came not he might take alarm and thus depart himself." "But will he not go there expecting us, and, waiting, be seized upon? Cannot that be done?" "It is impossible. At once he would suspect. No, he must go with me to the Marshes; then, but not before, he must know that you are not coming, but that Barry is. And he must make sure of Barry before he will approach anywhere near where the boat's crew is. Anne, we must get your master there somehow. Remember, we have a coward to deal with; a man who, if he is half a fool, is also wholly knave. We know that." "God knows we do," sighed Anne, laughing no more as she thought of her dead sister. "Well! how is it to be done? Neither Ariadne nor Sir Geoffrey would join in any further plot. She regrets the other one--the plot of the marriage." "Somehow," said Granger, "it must be done. This is our chance. If we miss it now it will never come again. And we have three clear days still to meditate upon it. Meet me here again in forty-eight hours; by then I will have devised some means." CHAPTER XVI. WEAVING THE NET. Ariadne was happy again; happy once more for a short time. The _Mignonne_ lay at her old anchorage on the Saturday night following the events just detailed, and in her stateroom, or main cabin, Geoffrey sat at the head of his table, and she was opposite to him. The solitary lodgings were discarded for a time--if they were ever to be occupied again, which was not likely, since, when the frigate went to join Hawke's fleet, Ariadne would retire to Fanshawe Manor, there to wait and wait and watch for his return, and pray to God that that return might be allowed. The lodgings were therefore given up now, and for ever, and she was with her husband. Oh! how happy she would be, she said again and again, if only they had never more to part, or, parting, that he had not to go forth upon so perilous an enterprise as that of fighting the French. But to-night, as they sat together, she would not allow even this sad prospect to distract her. To-night she was resolved to be gay and bright, and to make her husband's return to what she called "home" a happy and cheerful one. "For," she said to him, "who knows but that, after all, you may not have to go to the fleet, that you may not have to fight the French----"