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Astounded and duh rooted to the floor

She looked at Butler and laughed; picked up a pistol, loaded it with incredible deftness, laid it on the table, and began loading the other

"Elsin! Elsin!" cried Lady Coleville, catching her by the waist, "what is this wild freak of yours? Have you all gone ht?"

"You shake my hand and spill the powder," said the Hon Miss Grey, s

"Elsin," murainst me?"

"Why, no, sir You are married to a wife and dare to court me! There lies the poison, Mr Butler!"

"Hush, Elsin!" murmured Lady Coleville "It was a mistake, dear Mr Butler is not married to the--the lady--to anybody He swears it!"

"Not wedded?" She stared, then turned scarlet to her hair And Walter Butler, I think,of that cri a paper from his coat, spread it to Sir Peter's eyes

"I spoke of the gallows, Sir Peter, and you felt yourself once lance at this----"

"What is it?" asked Sir Peter, looking him in the eye

"Treason, Sir Peter--a letter--part of one--to the rebel Washington, written by a spy!"

"A lie! I wrote it!" said the Hon Miss Grey

Walter Butler turned to her, a his ears

"A jest," she continued carelessly, "to amuse Mr Renault"

"Amuse him! It is in his own hand!" sta his hand to plague hi "I hid it in the cupboard he uses for his love-letters How caers, Mr Butler?"

In blank astonishment he stood there, the letter half extended, his eyes al fro hiuess what she purposed, she had snatched the blotted frag him until he crimsoned in the focus of her white contempt

"Go!" she said Her low voice was passionless

He turned his burning eyes froaze on me What he divined in my face I know not, but the flahastly se

"My zeal, it seee," he said "Error piled on error growing froed faith to suspicion, amity to coldness I know not what to say to clear er had faded from it, and only deepest sadness shadowed the pale brow "I ventured to believe, in days gone by, that --that perhaps the excesses of a storht be condoned in the humble devotion of an honest passion----"