At last he spoke slowly, reflectively: "But if this were really so--a mere blunder--I see no sufficient grounds to threaten him with capital punishment.

His subsequent desertion, if he has deserted--I mean if nothing has happened to him--is really the graver matter of the two." "I gathered, sir, that he was to be sacrificed to the Council of Regency--a sort of scapegoat." He swung round sharply, and the sudden blaze of his eyes almost terrified her.

Instantly he was cold again and inscrutable.

"Ah! You are oddly well informed throughout.

But of course you would be," he added, with an appraising look into that intelligent face in which he now caught a faint likeness of Jack Armytage.