"Ye've an odd daring, by God! Ye'll be well matched with his impudence, there." Rotherby, singularly self-contained, recalled her to the occasion.
"Mr.Caryll is waiting," said he, a sneer in his voice.
"Ah, yes," she said, and flashing a last malignant glance upon Hortensia, she sank to a chair beside her, but not too near her.
Mr.Caryll sat back, his legs crossed, his elbows on his chair-arms, his finger-tips together.

"The thing I have to tell you is of some gravity," he announced by way of preface.
Rotherby took a seat by the desk, his hand upon the treasonable letters.

"Proceed, sir," he said, importantly.

Mr.Caryll nodded, as in acknowledgment of the invitation.
"I will admit, before going further, that in spite of the cheerful countenance I maintained before your lordship's friend, the bumbailiff, and your lackeys, I recognize that you have me in a very dangerous position." "Ah!" from his lordship in a breath of satisfaction, and "Ah!" from Hortensia in a gasp of apprehension.
Her ladyship retained a stony countenance, and a silence that sorted excellently with it.
"There is," Mr.Caryll proceeded, marking off the points on his fingers, "the incident at Maidstone; there is your ladyship's evidence that I was the bearer of just such a letter on the day that first I came here; there is the dangerous circumstance--of which Mr.Green, I am sure, will not fail to make a deal--of my intimacy with Sir Richard Everard, and my constant visits to his lodging, where I was, in fact, on the occasion when he met his death; there is the fact that I committed upon Mr.Green an assault with my snuff box for motives that, after all, admit of but one acceptable explanation; and, lastly, there is the circumstance that, apparently, if interrogated, I can show no good reason why I should be in England at all, where no apparent interest has called me or keeps me.
"Now, these matters are so trivial that taken separately they have no value whatever; taken conjointly, their value is not great; they do not contain evidence enough to justify the hanging of a dog.

And yet, I realize that disturbed as the times are, fearful of sedition as the government finds itself in consequence of the mischief done to public credit by the South Sea disaster, and ready as the ministry is to see plots everywhere and to make examples, pour discourager les autres, if the accusation you intend is laid against me, backed by such evidence as this, it is not impossible--indeed, it is not improbable--that it may--ah--tend to shorten my life." "Sir," sneered Rotherby, "I declare you should have been a lawyer.