Lord Vincent turned to the intruders and haughtily demanded: "What is the meaning of this conduct, fellows? Were you not told that I would not see you to-night? How dare you push yourselves up into the private apartment of these ladies? Leave the room and the house instantly." "We will leave the room and the house, my lord; but, when we do so, you and that lady must go with us," said the taller of the two policemen, advancing into the room. "What?" demanded the viscount. "Mon Dieu!" shrieked Faustina. "Gracious, goodness, me, alive!" exclaimed Mrs. MacDonald. "You are wanted," answered the policeman, whose name by the way was McRae. "What do you mean, fellow? Leave the room, I say, before I order my servant to kick you out!" fiercely cried the viscount. The policeman immediately stepped up to the side of his lordship and laid his hand upon his shoulder, saying: "Malcolm Dugald, Lord Vincent, you are my prisoner." "Your prisoner, you scoundrel! hands off, I say!" cried the viscount. "I arrest you in the Queen's name, for the abduction and selling into slavery of the three negroes, Catherine Mortimer, James Mortimer, and Sarah Sims," said McRae, taking a firmer hold of his captive. "Let go my collar, you infernal villain, and show me your warrant!" thundered Lord Vincent, wrenching himself from the grasp of the policeman. McRae calmly produced his warrant and placed it in the hands of the viscount. Lord Vincent, astonished, terrified, but defiant, held the document up before his dazed eyes and tried to read it. But though he held it up with both hands close to his blanched face, it trembled so in his grasp that he could not trace the characters written upon it. While he held it thus, McRae slyly drew something from his own pocket, approached the viscount and--click! click--the handcuffs were fastened upon the wrists of his lordship! Down fluttered the warrant from the relaxed fingers of the viscount, while his face, exposed to view, seemed set in a deadly panic as he gazed upon his captor. "Look to him, Ross," said McRae, addressing his comrade and pointing to the viscount. Then he stepped up to the cowering form of Mrs. Dugald, who had shrunk to the very back of her deep velvet chair. Laying his hand upon her shoulder he said: "Faustina Dugald, you are my prisoner. I arrest you, in the Queen's name, upon the charge of having aided and abetted Lord Vincent in the abduction of--" "Oh, horror! let me go, you horrid brute!" cried Faustina, suddenly finding her voice, interrupting the officer with her shrieks and springing from under his hand. She rushed towards the passage door with the blind impulse of flight and tore it open, only to find herself stopped by a posse of constables drawn up without. They had come in force strong enough to overcome resistance, if necessary. "Give yourself up, Faustina. It is the best thing you can do," said the viscount.