“But why don’t they come in?” Monty asked apprehensively. “They’re staying out there to keep us prisoners,” he was told. “Then I hope they’ll stop there,” Monty exclaimed fervently. “I can’t help thinking,” Denby said, knitting his brows, “that they’ve got someone in here on the inside, working under cover to try to get the necklace. What do you know about the butler, Lambart? Is he a new man?” “Lord, no,” Monty assured him. “He has been with Michael five years, and worships him. You’d distress Lambart immeasurably if you even hinted he’d ever handed a plate to a smuggler.” “We’ve got to find out who it is,” Denby said decidedly, “and then, Monty, we’ll have some sport.” “Then we’ll have some shooting,” Monty returned in disgust. “Where is that confounded necklace anyway? Is Michael carrying it around without knowing it?” “Still in my pouch,” Denby returned. As he said this, Miss Cartwright very gently opened a door toward which his back was turned. Terrified at the thought of Taylor’s possible intrusion, she had been spurred to some sort of action, and had sauntered back to the big hall with the hope of overhearing something that would aid her. “I know they mean business,” she heard Denby say, “and this is going to be a fight, Monty, and a fight to a finish.” The thought that there might presently be scenes of violence enacted in the hospitable Harrington home, scenes in which she had a definite rôle to play, which might lead even to the death of Denby as it certainly must lead to his disgrace, drove her nearly to hysteria. Taylor had inspired her with a great horror, and at the same time a great respect for his power and courage. She did not see how a man like Steven Denby could win in a contest between himself and the brutal deputy-surveyor. “Oh,” she sighed, “if they were differently placed! If Steven stood for the law and Taylor for crime!” Everything favored Taylor, it seemed to her. Denby was alone except for Monty’s faltering aid, while the other had his men at hand and, above all, the protection of the law. It was impossible to regard Taylor as anything other than a victor making war on men or women and moved by nothing to pity. What other man than he would have tortured her poor little sister, she wondered. To a woman used through the exigencies of circumstances to making her living in a business world where competition brought with it rivalries, trickeries and jealousies, the ordeal to be faced would have been almost overwhelming. But the Cartwrights had lived a sheltered life, the typical happy family life where there is wealth, and none until to-day had ever dared to speak to Ethel as Taylor had done. She was almost frantic with the knowledge that she must play the spy, the eavesdropper, perhaps the Delilah among people who trusted her. As she was debating what next to do, she heard Monty’s voice as it seemed to her fraught with excitement and eager and quick.