And still that measured tramp down the street, growing louder, more distinct, a muffled "Halt!" the sound of arms, of men moving about beneath that yawning archway and along the dark and dismal passage with its hermetically closed front door. CHAPTER XX MY LORD PROTECTOR'S PATROL Alone, Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse had taken no part in the confused turmoil which raged around the personalities of Segrave and Richard Lambert. From the moment that he had--with studied callousness--turned his back on his erstwhile protégé he had held aloof from the crowd which had congregated around the two young men. He saw before him the complete success of his nefarious plan, which had originated in the active brain of Editha, but had been perfected in his own--of heaping dire and lasting disgrace on the man who had become troublesome and interfering of late, who was a serious danger to his more important schemes. After the fracas of this night Richard Lambert forsooth could never show his face within two hundred miles of London, the ugly story of his having cheated at cards and been publicly branded as a liar and a thief by a party of gentlemen would of a surety penetrate even within the fastnesses of Thanet. So far everything was for the best, nay, it might be better still, for Segrave enraged and maddened at his losses, might succeed in getting Lambert imprisoned for stealing, and cheating, even at the cost of his own condemnation to a fine for gambling. The Endicotts had done their part well. The man especially, with his wide cuffs and his quick movements. No one there present could have the slightest doubt but that Lambert was guilty. Satisfied, therefore, that all had gone according to his own wishes, Sir Marmaduke withdrew from further conflict or argument with the unfortunate young man, whom he had so deliberately and so hopelessly ruined. And because he thus kept aloof, his ears were not so completely filled with the din, nor his mind so wholly engrossed by the hand-to-hand struggle between the two young men, that he did not perceive that other sound, which, in spite of barred windows and drawn curtains, came up from the street below. At first he had only listened carelessly to the measured tramp. But the cry of "Halt!" issuing from immediately beneath the windows caused his cheeks to blanch and his muscles to stiffen with a sudden sense of fear. He cast a rapid glance all around. Segrave and Lambert--both flushed and panting--were forcibly held apart. Sir Marmaduke noted with a grim smile that the latter was obviously the center of a hostile group, whilst Segrave was surrounded by a knot of sympathizers who were striving outwardly to pacify him, whilst in reality urging him on through their unbridled vituperations directed against the other man. The noise of arguments, of shrill voices, of admonitions and violent abuse had in no sense abated.