‘Meaning you,’ replied the latter, continuing in the most friendly tone; ‘you have the right, it seems to me, and you ought to have the will, to unmask this intruder. It is your own fault, Maxwell, with good friends at your back, if you have not the power. Come, you may count upon me for one in this matter. To-night I have reason to believe Mistress Carmichael will again meet this mysterious personage in the Abbey garden, whilst the revel is at high tide in the palace. Follow her to the tryst, confront your rival and compel him to declare himself, or to do you reason with his sword. If needed I will be at your back, and should all other means fail, six inches of cold steel can easily square accounts between you.’ ‘And your reason for thus interesting yourself in my concerns?’ demanded Maxwell, with a dry laugh. ‘Is it purely out of friendship for me, Master Randolph?’ ‘Now you speak like a sensible man,’ replied the diplomatist, ‘and I answer you with the frankness you deserve. No! with all my regard for you, this interest, on my part, is _not_ entirely for your sake. I have reason to mistrust this stranger; I have my suspicions of some dark plot, against which it is my bounden duty to be on my guard. If he be a friend, my plan will at once set matters on a proper footing, both as regards yourself and the lady of whom we speak. If an enemy, the sooner he is removed from our path the better. Have I not convinced you that our interests are identical? The day wanes; one more cup of the Cyprus, Master Maxwell, and then, first to the Palace, afterwards to the garden.’ Maxwell filled and emptied the cup of Cyprus as he was bidden: but his was a temperament on which wine took but little effect, or rather, in which it stimulated the faculties without upsetting the judgment. Even Randolph’s brain, powerful as that organ undoubtedly was, could not have been less affected by his potations than was the soldier’s. As the pair, ostensibly dismissing the subject from their minds, talked gaily on about other matters, it would have been amusing to note the dexterity with which the diplomatist adapted his conversation to the purpose he had in view. How with a casual remark here, a covert sarcasm there, he endeavoured to stimulate the other’s jealousy and to arouse his alarm, whilst, at the same time, with many a plausible argument and choice anecdote, introduced as it were by chance, he endeavoured to establish the expediency of prompt and desperate measures on all occasions where a man had to deal with cases of mystery and intrigue.