“It was a beautifully clear night. I thought Sir Philip was away, but he had returned from London without my knowledge. Somehow, some one--one of the spies who are about me, waking and sleeping--picked up and read this letter. I can only suppose this, for all I know is that as I crept out of the house at about half-past nine I was followed. Just as I reached the shrubbery, and caught sight in the moonlight of my father and brother in waiting under the dark shadow of the trees, I was seized from behind, something was thrust into my mouth and over my eyes, and I was carried back into the house. I fought and struggled, but to no purpose, and I could plainly hear several shots, the sound of a scuffle, and a great cry as of a man in mortal agony. From that day to this I have been able to learn nothing of what happened on that night. But yesterday Margaret overheard Sir Philip telling his steward that he was going to Guildford to-day, where the sessions are held, to appear as a witness against some poachers who were found in his grounds several weeks ago, and who have been in jail ever since. Dr. Netherbridge, I am certain he meant my father and my brother!” “But how could that be?” he asked, trying to allay her fierce excitement. “Your father and brother are not poachers surely?” A faint red color stole into her white cheeks. “My people don’t see that the rich are injured by the loss of a hare or a rabbit now and again,” she muttered with lowered eyelids. “They should belong to the people, wild game like that, and a bird or two--but that’s not what we were talking of. It was no poaching brought out Jim and father that night. Sir Philip knew that right enough. He made me take a solemn oath never to betray to anybody what he called my disgraceful origin. Disgraceful!” she repeated, with burning cheeks. “A Carewe’s as good as a Cranstoun any day, as I’ve told him often enough. I’ve never broken my vow until to-day; not even Margaret knows who my people are. But I’ve told you, because I must and will know what has happened to my father and my brother Jim to-day.” As he watched her talking, and noted the English nature of her beauty, the intense blue-blackness of her hair, and a certain touch of wildness about her free, graceful gestures and rapid speech, another conviction came home to Ernest Netherbridge’s mind, and this was that Lady Cranstoun, wife of Sir Philip Cranstoun, of the Chase, Surrey, Cranstoun Hall, in Aberdeenshire, and Berkeley Square, London, had in her veins the untamable blood of the true “Egyptian,” those despised wanderers over the face of the earth who are found and hated in all the chief countries of Europe.