"If you suspect rightly," said he, when I had finished my tale, "the first thing to be done is to get her out of Charles Street." "Do you think me too ready to suspect?" I replied. "No," was his answer; "I am afraid you are right." "But what do they want to do with her, or to her?" cried I, under my breath. "Cary," said Ephraim, gravely, "I am very glad you have told me this. I will go so far as to tell you in return that I too have my suspicions of young Crossland, though they are of rather a different kind from yours. You suspect him, so far as I understand you, of matrimonial designs on Hatty, real or feigned. I am afraid rather that these appearances are a blind to hide something deeper and worse. I know something of this man, not enough to let me speak with certainty, but just sufficient to make me doubt him, and to guide me in what direction to look. We must walk carefully on this path, for if I mistake not, the ground is strewn with snares." "What do you mean?" I cried, feeling terrified. "I would rather not tell you till I know more. I will try to do that as soon as possible." "I never thought of anything worse," said I, "than that knowing, as he is likely to do, that Hatty will some day have a few hundreds a year of her own, he is trying to inveigle her to marry him, and is not a man likely to be kind to her and make her happy." "He is certainly likely to make her very unhappy," replied Ephraim. "But I do not believe that he has any intentions of marriage, towards Hatty or anybody else." "But don't you think he may make her think so? Amelia told me he was engaged in marriage with a gentlewoman she knows." "I am sorry for the gentlewoman. Make her think so? Yes, and under cover of that, work out his plot. I would advise Miss Bracewell to beware that she is not made a catspaw." I told Ephraim what I had said to Amelia. "Then she is put on her guard: so far, well." "Ephraim, have you heard anything more of Angus?" "Nothing but what you know already." "Nor, I suppose, of Colonel Keith? I wish I knew what he is doing." "He has not had much chance of doing anything yet," said Ephraim, rather drily. "A sick-bed is not the most favourable place for helping one's friends out of prison." "Has Colonel Keith been ill?" cried I. "Mr Raymond did not tell you?" "He never told me a word. I do not know what he may have said to Annas." "A broken arm, and a fever on the top of it," said Ephraim. "The doctor talks of letting him go out to-morrow, if the weather suit." "O Ephraim!" cried I. "But where is he?" "Don't tell any one, if I tell you. Remember, Colonel Keith is a proscribed man." "I will do no harm to Annas's brother, trust me!" said I. "He is at Raymond's house, where he and I have been nursing him." "In a fever!" "Oh, it is not a catching fever. Think you either of us would have come here if it were?"