“I thank you for your advice. I can certify that you have done your duty fully and faithfully. Will you kindly bring forth the gold?” Vollins weighed the five bags of coin with careful exactitude and without further speech. De Courcy fastened them to his belt, then looked about him for his cloak, which he at last remembered to have left in the hall. Vollins called upon a servant to fetch it, taking it from him at the door. The Frenchman enveloped himself, and so hid his treasure. The cautious Vollins had prepared a receipt for him to sign, made out in the name of Frances Wentworth, but De Courcy demurred; it was all very well for the counting-house, he said, but not in the highest society. The Earl of Strafford would be the first to object to such a course, he insisted. Frances herself tore the paper in pieces, and said that a signature was not necessary, while Vollins made no further protest. She implored De Courcy, in a whispered adieu, to acquit faithfully the commission with which her father had entrusted him, and he assured her that he was now confident of success, thanking her effusively for the capable conduct of a difficult matter of diplomacy. Then, with a sweeping gesture of obeisance, he took his courteous departure. Mr. Vollins deferentially asked Frances to sign a receipt which he had written, acknowledging the payment of a thousand pounds, and to this document she hurriedly attached her signature. CHAPTER VI.--ORDEAL. Frances made her way to the North as her father had directed, and everywhere found the news of his arrest in advance of her; the country ablaze with excitement because of it. The world would go well once Strafford was laid low. He had deluded and misled the good King, as Buckingham did before him. Buckingham had fallen by the knife; Strafford should fall by the axe. Then the untrammelled King would rule well; quietness and industry would succeed this unhealthy period of fever and unrest.