There was a watch-dog at Sue’s heels, stern, alert, unyielding.  Richard Lambert was probing the secret of the mysterious prince, with the unerring eye of the disappointed lover.

The meeting to-night had been terribly dangerous.  Sir Marmaduke knew that Lambert was lurking somewhere in the park.

At present even the remotest inkling of the truth must still be far from the young man’s mind.  The whole scheme was so strange, so daring, so foreign to the simple ideas of the Quaker-bred lad, that its very boldness had defied suspicion.  But the slightest mischance now, a meeting at the door of the pavilion, an altercation—­face to face, eye to eye—­and Richard Lambert would be on the alert.  His hatred would not be so blind, nor yet so clumsy, as that of his brother, the blacksmith.  There is no spy so keen in all the world as a jealous lover.

This had been the prince’s first meeting with Sue, since that memorable day when the secret of their clandestine love became known to Lambert.  Sir Marmaduke knew well that it had been fraught with danger; that every future meeting would wax more and more perilous still, and that the secret marriage itself, however carefully and secretively planned, would hardly escape the prying eyes of the young man.

The unmasking of Prince Amede d’Orleans before Sue had become legally his wife was a possibility which Sir Marmaduke dared not even think of, lest the very thought should drive him mad.  Once she was his wife! ... well, let her look to herself....  The marriage tie would be a binding one, he would see to that, and her fortune should be his, even though he had won her by a lie.

He had staked his very existence on the success of his scheme.  Lady Sue’s fortune was the one aim of his life, for it he had worked and striven, and lied:  he would not even contemplate a future without it, now that his plans had brought him so near the goal.

He had one faithful ally, though not a powerful one, in Editha, who, lured by some vague promises of his, desperate too, as regarded her own future, had chosen to throw in her lot whole-heartedly with his.

He was closeted with her on the following day, in the tiny withdrawing-room which leads out of the hall at Acol Court.  When he had stolen into the house in the small hours of the morning he had seen Richard Lambert leaning out of one of the windows which gave upon the park.

It seemed as if the young man must have seen him when he skirted the house, for though there was no moonlight, the summer’s night was singularly clear.  That Lambert had been on the watch—­spying, as Sir Marmaduke said with a bitter oath of rage—­was beyond a doubt.

Editha too was uneasy; she thought that Lambert had purposely avoided her the whole morning.

“I lingered in the garden for as long as I could,” she said to her brother-in-law, watching with keen anxiety his restless movements to and fro in the narrow room, “I thought Lambert would keep within doors if he saw me about.  He did not actually see you, Marmaduke, did he?” she queried with ever-growing disquietude.