"But, my dear," began the Bishop meekly, "if we cannot find a fourth hand—"
"If Miss Banborough doesn't feel up to playing," came the sweet tones of Violet's voice, "I'll be delighted to take her place." And a moment later she was ensconced at the table.
The Bishop's sister retired to a corner with the largest and most aggressive volume of sermons she could find, and sniffed loudly at intervals all the evening. And when at ten o'clock, in response to the summons of an impressive functionary clad in black and bearing a wand surmounted by a silver cross, the little party filed out to evening devotions in the chapel, Miss Matilda gathered her skirts around her as if she feared contagion.
"I'm afraid of that old cat," Mrs. Mackintosh confided to Violet, when they had reached the haven of their apartments. "I'm sure she suspects us already; and if we're not careful, she'll find us out."
CHAPTER II.
IN WHICH THE ENEMY ARRIVES.
"I say, boss," remarked the tramp, as he paused for a moment in the process of stuffing himself to repletion with cold game-pie, "this is a rum trip, and no mistake."
"What's that got to do with you?" retorted Marchmont sharply, appropriating the remaining fragments of the pasty to his own use.
The two men were seated in the shady angle of a ruined buttress, a portion of a stately abbey, which in pre-Norman days had flourished at a spot some half-dozen miles from the site of Blanford.