“Take it? Before all the world--always, come what will.” His eyes were dim as he spoke, and his rich voice rang clear as the ring of silver, though there was the tremor of emotion in it. He had forgotten the Hebrew's presence; he had forgotten all save his friend and his friend's extremity. Cecil did not answer; if he had done so, all the courage, all the calm, all the control that pride and breeding alike sustained in him, would have been shattered down to weakness; his hand closed fast in his companion's, his eyes met his once in a look of gratitude that pierced the heart of the other like a knife; then he turned to the Jew with a haughty serenity. “M. Baroni, I am ready.” “Wait!” cried Rockingham. “Where you go I come.” The Hebrew interposed demurely. “Forgive me, my lord--not now. You can take what steps you will as regards your friend later on; and you may rest assured he will be treated with all delicacy compatible with the case, but you cannot accompany him now. I rely on his word to go with me quietly; but I now regard him, and you must remember this, as not the son of Viscount Royallieu--not the Honorable Bertie Cecil, of the Life Guards--not the friend of one so distinguished as yourself--but as simply an arrested forger.” Baroni could not deny himself that last sting of his vengeance; yet, as he saw the faces of the men on whom he flung the insult, he felt for the moment that he might pay for his temerity with his life. He put his hand above his eyes with a quick, involuntary movement, like a man who wards off a blow. “Gentlemen,” and his teeth chattered as he spoke, “one sign of violence, and I shall summon legal force.” Cecil caught the Seraph's lifted arm, and stayed it in its vengeance. His own teeth were clinched tight as a vise, and over the haggard whiteness of his face a deep red blush had come. “We degrade ourselves by resistance. Let me go--they must do what they will. My reckoning must wait, and my justification. One word only. Take the King and keep him for my sake.” Another moment, and the door had closed; he was gone out to his fate, and the Seraph, with no eyes on him, bowed down his head upon his arms where he leaned against the marble table, and, for the first time in all his life, felt the hot tears roll down his face like rain, as the passion of a woman mastered and unmanned him--he would sooner a thousand times have laid his friend down in his grave than have seen him live for this.