He had signed to the smooth ruffian to stand with his back against the table. “Sir,” said Fern, “will you not hear me speak?” “Before witnesses, fellow. Believe me, I’ve had enough of your sole company to serve me a lifetime.” He was turning to go, when he was aware of the girl standing, with frightened eyes, in the shadow of the hearth. “Before God, sweetheart,” he cried, “I commit you to rare company! This is the hound, Betty, that wrought you a cur’s vengeance!” The visitor pursed his lips and shut his eyes and shook his head in some patient dissent. “You will not let me plead,” he murmured. “It is safe to slander the dumb.” “Give me your piece, William, and go summon Sir David and Whimple hither. I will not let him out of my sight.” The groom obeyed and hurried off. The moment he was vanished Betty came like a tassel-gentle to her master’s call. “He is an old man,” she said. “He should have had pity for white hairs. Why were you so cruel to my grandfather, sir?” “Young lady,” said Fern sorrowfully--“whoever it was worked you that wicked wrong--and I confess I have my suspicions--hath unwittingly, it seems, provided it a golden sequel. Like the beautiful phœnix, which you may have read of, you renew yourself in the ashes of your own destruction, and you shall wear fine feathers yet in a triumph over misfortune.” “Don’t answer him, Betty,” said her master; “and go up-stairs, wench. I’ll not have you breathe in the same room with him.” The girl went to the door, looked back wistfully, and obeyed, at the moment that the groom, followed by the two he had been dispatched for, entered the dining-hall. Sir David’s face expressed sufficient astonishment. “Who the thunder’s this?” said he, stopping blank on the threshold. “This is the affable Mr. Fern, Blythewood, who comes to surrender himself into our hands. The frost, he says, has demoralized his gang.” “Do you scent a trick? Have a care, Tuke.” “Sir David,” quoth the other, mindful of his prisoner’s face, “how is our company disposed?” “Why, man--here are we four; Captain Luvaine and Jim are on guard; Lord Dunlone is above, and the boy, a sterling lad, keeps watch at the window.” Mr. Fern slurred an irrepressible start into a change of position. “Did you speak?” said Mr. Tuke politely. The man muttered something in the nature of a negative. “Oh!” said the gentleman--“I thought perhaps you fancied you had put your head into a hornet’s nest. Is that you, Whimple? Were you successful?” “I cannot find it, sir. The girl must have concealed it.” The servant spoke in a strange pre-occupied voice. He stood in the shadow of the flung-back door, and from his covert he looked upon the old enemy of his peace with tranced, motionless eyes, and the expression of one who dreamed a nightmare “and woke to find it truth.” Even Mr. Fern showed some embarrassment under the pitiless scrutiny.