“No, no!  Hell and furies!  In the coach when Wentworth was killed?  My God, tell me all about it, man!” he cried, clutching my arm, and glaring at me with the eyes of a crazy man.

“Yes,” I answered.  “And she tells me she recognized one of the robbers by the light of the coach lanthorn, though she refused to describe the man she saw and will not be induced to talk about him.  Possibly you were the unlucky man.  If true, can you wonder that she hates you?”

He sat down on the edge of the bed, musing, then fell back on the pillow with a great sigh, and muttered as though speaking to himself:—­

“I can wonder at nothing save my marvellous ill luck.  This tale points a moral, Baron Ned.  If one belongs to the devil, one should stand by one’s master.  Hell is swifter in revenge than heaven in reward.”

“It is only the long run that tells the tale,” I answered, taking his hot hand to soothe him.  “Heaven always wins, and your reward will come.”

“Ah, yes, the long run is all right if one can only hold out,” he answered, gripping my hand and breathing rapidly.  He was almost in delirium.  “But I’ll take the short run, Baron Ned.”  Here his voice rose almost to a scream:  “I’ll take the short run, Ned, and will kill the king!  Then to hell after him by way of Tyburn Hill!”

He sprang to me, grasped my shoulders fiercely, and spoke as one in a frenzy:  “I was right, Ned.  She is all I thought she was at Sundridge.  When I first knew her I doubted my senses.  I did not know there was a pure woman outside of a convent, but when I learned to know her I changed my mind.  Now comes this accursed Charles Stuart!  His house has been a bane to England ever since the spawn of the Scotch courtesan first came to London.  But his reign will be short!”

He was becoming delirious, so I induced him to lie on the bed while I went downstairs to find Betty.  When I found her, I told her that the fever was mounting to Hamilton’s brain, and that I feared he would soon become violent.

She sent a boy to fetch a physician, then turned to me, saying:—­

“I’ll go up to him.  I believe I can quiet him.”

So we went back to George’s room and found him out of bed, prowling about like a caged wild thing, tossing his arms, and shouting his intention to kill the king.

“You must go back to bed, Master Hamilton,” commanded Betty in her soft, low voice.

He caught her around the waist and said, laughing, “You’re a good girl, Betty.”

“I hope I am, sir.  But you must go back to bed,” she answered.

“And you’re pretty, too.  Pretty and good don’t usually go together,” said George, drawing her close to him.

“No, but you must go back to bed, Master Hamilton, or you will be very ill,” she pleaded.

“I’ll go for a kiss, Betty,” he answered, bending over to take it.  But she put up her hands to ward him off.