Rotherby's mouth fell open, but he made no sound. Not so her ladyship. A peal of shrill laughter broke from her. “La! What did I tell you, Charles?” Then to Hortensia: “I'm sorry for you, ma'am,” said she. “I think ye've been a thought too long in making up your mind.” And she laughed again. “Lord Ostermore lies above stairs,” Hortensia reminded her, and her ladyship went white at the reminder, the indecency of her laughter borne in upon her. “Would ye lesson me, girl?” she cried, as much to cover her confusion as to vent her anger at the cause of it. “Ye've an odd daring, by God! Ye'll be well matched with his impudence, there.” Rotherby, singularly self-contained, recalled her to the occasion. “Mr. Caryll is waiting,” said he, a sneer in his voice. “Ah, yes,” she said, and flashing a last malignant glance upon Hortensia, she sank to a chair beside her, but not too near her. Mr. Caryll sat back, his legs crossed, his elbows on his chair-arms, his finger-tips together. “The thing I have to tell you is of some gravity,” he announced by way of preface. Rotherby took a seat by the desk, his hand upon the treasonable letters. “Proceed, sir,” he said, importantly. Mr. Caryll nodded, as in acknowledgment of the invitation. “I will admit, before going further, that in spite of the cheerful countenance I maintained before your lordship's friend, the bumbailiff, and your lackeys, I recognize that you have me in a very dangerous position.” “Ah!” from his lordship in a breath of satisfaction, and “Ah!” from Hortensia in a gasp of apprehension. Her ladyship retained a stony countenance, and a silence that sorted excellently with it. “There is,” Mr. Caryll proceeded, marking off the points on his fingers, “the incident at Maidstone; there is your ladyship's evidence that I was the bearer of just such a letter on the day that first I came here; there is the dangerous circumstance--of which Mr. Green, I am sure, will not fail to make a deal--of my intimacy with Sir Richard Everard, and my constant visits to his lodging, where I was, in fact, on the occasion when he met his death; there is the fact that I committed upon Mr. Green an assault with my snuff box for motives that, after all, admit of but one acceptable explanation; and, lastly, there is the circumstance that, apparently, if interrogated, I can show no good reason why I should be in England at all, where no apparent interest has called me or keeps me.