In less than half an hour Bugbee departed in a fly in hot haste to prepare the yacht for the royal guest; and some minutes later George the Fifth handed Mrs. Oswald Carey into the banker's closed carriage, and the pair were driven off to London. CHAPTER XI. THE RAISING OF THE FLAG. Mr. Windsor's guests had all departed, the lights were out in the rooms so lately filled with the pleasant discord of animated voices, and the kindly old American host had gone to his rest with the satisfaction of believing that his last night in England would be enjoyably remembered by his new friends when he and his daughter were far on their voyage home. But Mr. Windsor knew, a few weeks later, that beneath the smooth surface of his farewell party, as he had seen it, ran a secret current of fatal force and purpose. He had entertained unaware on that night nearly all the Royalist leaders, who had taken advantage of his invitation to meet in a place where suspicion of their movements could not follow. The gentlemen left Mr. Windsor's house not in groups or even pairs, but singly. It was remarkable that none of them had a carriage, and that after leaving the house every one turned and walked in the same direction. About an hour after the last guest had gone, in a large house belonging to a banished earl, where Featherstone had resided for the past two weeks, there was a full meeting of the Royalist chiefs, including those who had been at Mr. Windsor's, and many more. They had come singly from many quarters, but all on foot, and they had entered by a door on a quiet side street. There were perhaps forty men in all. Here were old and dignified noblemen, more than one of whom wore threadbare coats and other signs of actual poverty; and here were young spirits aflame with the hope of action. Here a lot of antiquated baronet-squires flock together, and yonder stands a knot of grizzled colonels with the professional air of men awaiting orders. Here is the old Duke of Bayswater, listening through his eyeglasses, while Geoffrey Ripon and Featherstone have a quiet jest with Mr. Sydney. Shortly after midnight--at about the same moment that Mrs. Oswald Carey received the bank-notes from Mr. Bugbee--the hum of conversation ceased in this meeting of the Royalists, and all eyes were turned toward a table in the centre of the long drawing-room, where stood John Dacre, who had just entered the room, his hands filled with papers. Dacre was in the uniform of a staff officer, and on his breast he wore the battle-cross he had won in his first campaign, and also some gaudier honors awarded him for loyalty and devotion to the cause of the King. The strong light of the chandelier showed the tense lines of his finely-cut face, which was white with excitement, and his eyes burned beneath his brows with a flame too strong to be subdued by any outer light.