“ To-day I love you to distraction; you may bend me to your lightest caprice with a kind word. But scorn me, and to-morrow you will have an enemy with the will, as well as the power, to cover you with shame. Aye, shame, Lady Prudence Brooke!" as she sprang to her feet with blazing eyes. "Where will you hide your head when all the world knows how and why you became the wife of an outlaw and a felon—the thief who stole the queen's necklace, for a nuptial gift to his bride! Ha, ha! that will be a feast indeed for the scandal-mongers of London Town!" ”

“ I have a good mind," cried Prue, "to tell her all and see what she says then! But no! she would think me a fool for throwing myself away upon a man who loves me so little that he can bear to talk of leaving me for a day, let alone for ever—"
"I love you more than my own life and soul," said Robin, "more than anything except honor and duty; but their call I dare not disobey. My life does not belong to myself, but to the cause of my king, and a felon's death may end it at any moment. ”

“ The old woman disappeared as if by magic, and when the soldiers broke into the room I was alone; nor could they find any trace of her, though they battered the place to pieces."
"She shall be found and compelled to give up her accomplice," cried the duchess furiously. "Soldiers surrounded the house, and yet the miscreant escaped! Pretty soldiers, forsooth!"
"Yes, truly," cried Prue; "and more than that—they arrested poor little me—because I was all alone there with the queen's diamonds; think of that! I had a narrow escape of spending the night in jail! ”

“ The lady threw off her veil, revealing the homely features and sparkling eyes of Margaret Moffat.
"You know me not," she said. "Yet we have met before, Robin Freemantle."
"I can not believe," replied Robin gallantly, "that, once seen, you could ever be forgotten by me."
"Well, possibly you did not see me; one far more attractive engrossed all your attention, and 'tis from her I come, to ask as favor from you, that which many of the highest in the land have offered in vain."
"You puzzle me greatly," said Robin. "What favor can any lady desire of a man as good as dead?" ”

“ He looked on with a sardonic smile while Sir Geoffrey, pressing several impassioned kisses upon Prue's reluctant hand, bade her "a brief adieu," and slowly backed himself to the door.
"I trust I am not driving Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert away," said Beachcombe stiffly.
"By no means," cried Prue with alacrity. "Sir Geoffrey was taking his leave when you entered. Sir Geoffrey, farewell. No doubt we shall meet at Lady Rialton's, or elsewhere, later in the day; our world is so small, we can not get away from one another even for an hour; don't you find it sometimes grows monotonous, Lord Beachcombe?" ”

“ The duchess quieted down and turned her face partly toward her.
"Is that Prudence Brooke?" she asked. "If you know anything about that accursed necklace, tell me quickly, before it is the death of me."
"I have news of it," said Prue, passing a cool, soothing hand over the hot brow and brushing away the heavy, straggling masses of hair, once the pride of Sarah Churchill and the envy of rival beauties. "If the necklace is returned what reward will you give the finder?"
"Reward? Oh! he shall be well rewarded; the finder need not be afraid to ask his own price," cried the duchess. ”

“ She drew away her hand.
"I should be sorry for any poor soul condemned to die," she said, with an effort at indifference.
"When last I saw her," he said doubtfully, as if reasoning out a strange problem against which his reason contended, "she was fresh and smiling, and prinked out like a princess for her marriage with a highwayman. To-day she is pale and sad," his eye ran over her somber figure, "and all in black—for my sake—"
"You run on too fast!" Prue interrupted petulantly. "Can I not wear a black dress without putting on mourning for your sake? Methinks I'll have to wear it for my own! ”

“ If I can not walk, I can wait on the roadside for some honest passer-by—"
"Never, dearest angel; never shall you leave my arms until you promise to put an end to my tortures. I have endured more from you than mortal man can be expected to brook with patience! You are in my power, sweetest Prue! A lucky chance has given you to my arms, and if I were to let you go now, I should deserve to lose you for ever."
"You lost me," cried Prue, "the day you gave me to Robin Freemantle. Now I belong to him; before God and man I am his wife."
"Tush! a felon—a gallows-bird!" cried Sir Geoffrey angrily. ”

“ The hour that I set my foot on a foreign shore in safety, I will cut the last thread that binds me to the past, but those two papers will never be yours, Lord Beachcombe, until it is out of your power to injure me. I have given my word, and I will keep it. My title in exchange for my life; your legitimacy in exchange for my safety."
"I knew it—I felt it!" cried Beachcombe. "This fellow himself is the arch-impostor."
"Impostor!" said Robin, with a contemptuous laugh, as he stood up and pointed to the earl. "Nature has cast us in the same mold; God be praised that her work is only skin-deep. ”

“ Gambling was the most fashionable vice of that day, and few subjects were too great or too small to hang a wager upon.
"Aye, Lord Beachcombe, if you want to lose money, I'll not deny you the opportunity," laughed Sir Geoffrey, recovering his good humor. "What do you want to wager? Fifty guineas? a hundred?"
"Fifty or a hundred guineas is all too small a wager for so important a matter," said Lord Beachcombe slowly, as though considering the exact sum demanded by the occasion. "Let us say a thousand—or five thousand." ”

“ But, try as hard as she might to look indignant, she blushed divinely and a furtive smile played hide-and-seek among her dimples. Of all Prue's many charms there was none to equal her smile. It was, perhaps, on that account that she smiled often and so maintained a reputation for good-nature that lured many an unsuspecting victim into disaster.
"That he is!" cried the messenger heartily. "For he said he'd done this beautiful lady a great injury, but for all that he would trust his life—and more than that—in her hands. Can any man be a worse fool than to trust a woman so far as that?" ”

“ Prue, are you utterly heartless? I declare, since I have seen the poor young man I am sorry for him and I wish I had not helped to turn his execution into a jest."
"Would you have me weep?" said Prue, almost sternly. "There is always time enough for that when there is nothing else to be done. Ah! I hear Sir Geoffrey's voice. You are dressed, Peggie, prithee go down to him and bring me word whether he has done his part, and is ready—and willing—to give away the bride." ”

“ He held out his arms to her, with such prayer and such insistence in his eyes, that Prue, startled, hung back an instant, and then, half involuntarily, drooped toward him, and permitted herself to be clasped in his passionate embrace.
When she drew herself away, her cheeks were rosy-red and her eyes cast down. But Robin, transferring his lips to her hand, fell on his knees before her.
"Oh!" he softly uttered, "I can bear to die now. Death itself can not rob me of your kiss." ”

“ But if Barbara's absence disturbed her, she was goaded almost beyond endurance by the persistence of Lord Beachcombe, who followed her like a shadow, ignoring alike her snubs and the gibes of those who fancied themselves on the trail of a renovated infatuation. In self-defense she kept Sir Geoffrey in close attendance, reckless of significant glances from curious eyes that were swift to mark his air of triumphant proprietorship, until at last, worn out with disappointment and fatigue, she begged him to call her chair, as she was dying to go home and get to bed. ”

“ Beachcombe still hesitated. His curiosity was strongly roused. He had had more than one experience of Prue's unbridled caprice, but this one bewildered him. He could not grasp the only explanation; its improbability baffled him. She had led so many eligible suitors—himself one of them—a lively dance to the very altar-rails; was it believable that this man—outlaw, fugitive, proscribed, penniless—could have won the wayward beauty, and won her so completely that having actually married him, she was ready to sacrifice the future she expected to share, for his present safety? ”

“ Superb equipages and sumptuous sedan-chairs blocked the thoroughfare, while their occupants, in gorgeous array, offered their congratulations to the Lady Prudence, and sipped weak tea and chocolate out of her grandmother's egg-shell "chaney" cups. Lady Drumloch did not venture into such a crowd, but, decked in her priceless cashmeres and laces, received a favored few in her dressing-room, and listened with a flush of pride on her pale face to the praises of Prue's beauty and the prognostications of a future even more brilliant and eventful than her past. ”

“ But do not, I entreat you, try my patience much longer."
"No doubt, Sir Geoffrey, I ought to be flattered by your persistence," replied Prue petulantly, "but if you have so little delicacy as to press one husband upon me before the other is in his grave, you surely are not anxious to inflict upon me the possible fate of a bigamist? If, perchance, one of these twenty highwaymen escaped, and that one proved to be the one you helped me to marry, your hasty wooing might cause poor Prudence Brooke to blossom on Tyburn Tree or, worse still, to end her days on a cotton plantation. ”

“ Aarons' visit, his surprise would have grown into amazement, for surely no greater tribute to the versatility of Prue's charms could be offered than the fact that they had brought Mr. Aarons to her feet. At least thirty of his fifty years had been spent in the exclusive pursuit of wealth. Pleasure he only knew by name. Love was to him merely a curious spell under which men became utterly reckless of consequences and unhesitatingly bartered their present possessions and future prospects for the means of dazzling a silly woman or purchasing a worthless one. ”

“ Prithee keep it, dear one; there is that in this envelope in exchange for which Beachcombe would give all his earthly possessions, and mayhap, some day when I am not here to protect you, it may be worth much to you to hold the secret that compelled him to take me out of Newgate, and has kept him thirsting for my life ever since."
"I am but a weak woman," said Prue, smiling archly, as she replaced the precious packet in her bosom. "Can you trust me with such a secret?"
"'Tis the secret of my birth," said Robin gravely, "and belongs as much to my wife as to me." ”

“ And away she flew to reassure herself, by a glance at her mirror, that her scene with Lady Drumloch had not dishevelled her luxuriant curls, and to disguise the shabbiness of her gown with a lace kerchief and a knot of ribbon.
"A plague on all milliners and tailors," she pouted; "to think that I should have to receive my betrothed after three weeks' separation, looking more like my lady's scullery-maid than her granddaughter."
"Sir Geoffrey will never know what you wear, if you sit away from the lamp, where he can just see your eyes by the firelight," counseled Margaret. ”

“ Is it not enough that I give you shelter in the home you have disgraced with your reckless follies, that I have to admit your wanton companions—only Mary Warburton and Lady Limerick, forsooth! Do you think I am so deaf as not to have heard the voices of half a dozen men, and your dear friend, Barbara Sweeting, sharer and inspirer of half the mad frolics that have made you notorious?—but I must pay your debts and give you money, when I'm so poor I can only afford one woman to wait on me, and can not go out for an airing because a carriage is too great a luxury for me—even a hired one! ”

“ What could make you imagine that he gave it to me?" she cried, in an accent of intense astonishment.
"My dear Viscountess, surely you are aware that this rascal, disguised in my mask and domino, followed you the whole evening of the masquerade-ball—"
"Is it possible?" cried Prue, with the prettiest imaginable air of incredulity. "La! what strange things happen at a masquerade!"
"Possible? 'Tis a fact," replied Beachcombe; "and 'tis easy to understand that having fallen madly in love with you—"
"The outrageous monster!" shrieked Prue. ”

“ Suddenly he tried to take her in his arms, but she repulsed him with a gesture almost of horror. "You forget, Sir Geoffrey," she said, "that I am the wife of another man."
He laughed ironically. "Is it possible that you are taking this farce seriously? I feared I had had the misfortune to offend you, and am relieved to find that nothing worse has come between us than Robin Freemantle."
"That is enough for the present," she said. "While one man can call me wife, all other men must keep their distance."
"Even your betrothed lover, Prudence?" ”

“ Sir Geoffrey a bankrupt!—his estates mortgaged!—was ever such a slander? He is a man of substance, I tell you. I have visited him in his ancestral domain, where he entertained me royally. He is lord of the manor, and has the retinue of a duke—no man in Yorkshire is more highly respected—he is M.F.H. and might be Sheriff of his Riding an' he chose!" She began to subside a little, though still angry, and looking, it must be owned, transcendently lovely in her excitement, with cheeks like damask roses, and flashing sapphire eyes. "Good Mr. Aarons, why did you give me such a scare?" ”

“ I believe the man is dead; but if not so in fact, he is dead to the law, and you are free—free, dearest, to make me happy and to be as happy yourself as the truest, fondest lover woman ever had can make you when he is your devoted husband. Come, my dear Prue, throw aside these coy humors and be your own sweet self once more—the adorable creature—"
"Oh! spare me these raptures!" protested Prue. "Even one's own praises become wearisome by repetition. In very truth I am too tired to enjoy your conversation this evening, Sir Geoffrey. ”

“ So, with tears and kisses and wiles most varied, but all through with a stubborn self-will that had often before subdued Peggie's feeble scruples, Prue won her at last, not merely as a confidante, but as an accomplice.
As soon as the whimsical creature found that there was nothing to fear from her cousin's opposition, her spirits rose at the prospect of an adventure even more reckless and madcap than usual. She ran on with a thousand absurd suggestions, until Peggie, infected by her mood, offered to visit the prison at Newgate, and lay Prue's proposal before the highwayman. ”

“ With which he flung a heavy wallet into the carriage and snatching the little silken trifle from Prue's hand, sprang on his horse and was quickly lost in the gloom of night.
"Insolent varlet!" cried Prue passionately. "Would I were a man to beat him to death!" And she burst into a flood of angry tears.
"Console yourself, sweet cousin," said her companion coaxingly. "You have saved our jewels for the second time to-day—first by outwitting a sheriff and now by cajoling a highwayman. After all, what is a kiss? ”