"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "I will! I believe you've hit on the very best possible solution of our difficulty. The episcopal palace at Blanford is absolutely the last place in the world where any one would think of looking for a political conspirator, and, by some freak of fortune, the police are entirely ignorant that I'm in any way connected with your flight."

"Good! then it's settled!" she cried. "And we'll all accompany you."

"Ye-es, only the governor wouldn't go within a hundred yards of a theatre, and my aunt calls actors children of—I forget whom—some one in the Old Testament."

"Belial," suggested Miss Arminster.

"That's it. How did you know?"

"You forget," she said, "I was brought up in a convent."

"It'll never do," he continued, "for them to suspect who you really are."

"Are we not actors?"

"Of course. We must have a dress rehearsal[Pg 145] at once, and cast you for your parts. But there's Friend Othniel—"

[Pg 145]

"Ah, yes," she said. "He's impossible."

"We must drop him somehow."

"That's easily managed," she replied. "Pay his hotel bill, and leave him a note with a nice little cheque in it to be delivered after we've gone."

"Then we must get away quickly, or he'll suspect."

"The sooner the better."

"I noticed that there was a ship sailing from Montreal for England this afternoon."

"That'll just suit our purpose," she said. "Friend Othniel told me he was going to walk up Mount Royal after lunch and wouldn't be back before six."

"And you'll really come to Blanford?" he asked, taking her hand.

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