"Of course--of course. I'll not insult you by planning details. The thing is obvious." "Only one man knows where we be hidden, an' that's Leaman Cloberry. He'll help 'e. He hates Malherb, 'cause he dusted rat-catcher's mangy jacket for him long ago. 'Tis Cloberry keeps us in food; an' a cruel lot of money he makes us pay for it." They conversed for the space of another hour; then Norcot directed the old woman to return to him in three weeks from that night, and let her out of the window. "An' you'll give me a clear hundred over what you change for me, an' buy my trinkets?" she said. "All that." "An' help me to take ship at Dartmouth an' get out o' the country?" "It is agreed." Lovey vanished and Peter watched her. The Malherb amphora was for that moment uppermost in his mind, but he had not mentioned it for fear of alarming her. His plot was adumbrated and the details began to grow. He meant to marry Grace after abducting her from her home; and he designed subsequently to propitiate Malherb with the amphora. "'Twill be a little surprise for our old lady to lose it after all," he thought. Peter appeared at seven o'clock to take breakfast, as usual, and, as Gertrude poured out coffee, he surprised his sister with an item of intelligence. "I go to London to-morrow," he said. "It is a bore to travel just now, but the East India Company must be obeyed." CHAPTER V THE LEOPARD CHANGES HER SPOTS John Lee had reached a supreme height of indifference to fortune even before his capture, condemnation and sentence. He awaited his end without concern, and only averted it at the instance of Thomas Putt. Afterwards, for mingled reasons, he carefully abstained from any intercourse with Fox Tor Farm. And thus it happened that he knew nothing of the supposed death and burial of his grandmother. The miser herself had gloated over the success of her enterprise as related by Mr. Cloberry, but Leaman was expressly directed by Lovey Lee to keep the truth a secret; and this he did, being well paid for his pains. Meantime the old woman's indignation grew that Maurice Malherb was not arrested and hanged. "'Tis a blackguard beast of a world," she told Leaman Cloberry. "One law for rich an' one for poor; but if there's any justice left stirring in the land, us may live to see him dancing in the air outside of Exeter Gaol yet." Now, after a period of most miserable seclusion in a shepherd's ruined cot near the secret sources of Dart, John Lee was to find himself again thrust into the affairs of Grace Malherb, and to thank God that he had been spared to do her further service. It was not until Peter Norcot had returned from London, after a visit of three weeks' duration, that Lovey Lee opened the new project to her grandson, and then, indeed, she approached it in a fashion so remarkable that one might have been stirred to admiration.