“There is,” she said presently, “a secret drawer somewhere in his desk. If he has papers they will, no doubt, be there. Had you not best be making search for them?” He smiled darkly. “I have seen to that already,” he replied. “How?” excitedly. “You have got the papers?” “No; but I have set an experienced hand to find them, and one, moreover, who has the right by virtue of his warrant--the messenger of the secretary of state.” She sat up, rigid. “'Sdeath! What is't ye mean?” “No need for alarm,” he reassured her. “This fellow Green is in my pay, as well as in the secretary's, and it will profit him most to keep faith with me. He's a self-seeking dog, content to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, so that there be profit in it, and he'd sacrifice his ears to bring Mr. Caryll to the gallows. I have promised him that and a thousand pounds if we save the estates from confiscation.” She looked at him, between wonder and fear. “Can ye trust him?” she asked breathlessly. He laughed softly and confidently. “I can trust him to earn a thousand pounds,” he answered. “When he heard of the impeachment, he used such influence as he has to be entrusted with the arrest of his lordship; and having obtained his warrant, he came first to me to tell me of it. A thousand pounds is the price of him, body and soul. I bade him seek not only evidence of my lord's having received that plaguey stock, but also papers relating to this Jacobite plot into which his lordship has been drawn by our friend Caryll. He is at his work at present. And I shall hear from him when it is accomplished.” She nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “You have very well disposed, Charles,” she approved him. “If your father lives, it should not be a difficult matter--” She checked suddenly and turned, while Rotherby, too, looked up and stepped quickly from the window-embrasure where he had stood. The door of the bedroom had been suddenly pulled open, and Sir James came out, very pale and discomposed. “Madam--your ladyship--my lord!” he gasped, his mouth working, his hands waving foolishly. The countess rose to confront him, tall, severe and harsh. The viscount scowled a question. Sir James quailed before them, evidently in affliction. “Madam--his lordship,” he said, and by his eloquent gesture of dejection announced what he had some difficulty in putting into words. She stepped forward, and took him by the wrist. “Is he dying?” she inquired. “Have courage, madam,” the doctor besought her. The apparent irrelevancy of the request at such a moment, angered her. Her mood was dangerously testy. And had the doctor but known it, sympathy was a thing she had not borne well these many years. “I asked you was he dying,” she reminded him, with a cold sternness that beat aside all his attempts at subterfuge. “Your ladyship--he is dead,” he faltered, with lowered eyes.