"No, matam, he has not."
"Is there no letter lying here for Miss Walsingham, of Regis, Surrey?"
"No, inteet, matam, nothing of te sort."
She turned suddenly, with a groan, from him, and her dark face grew darker.
"Tricked—drawn into a trap! I might have known it—oh, I might have known it!" she murmured, bitterly.
"Anyting I can to for you, my tear laty?" asked Mr. Caerlyon, attentively.
"Yes; you can send a servant to keep watch at my door until my man returns. And there is a person whom I want arrested upon the charge of attempted murder—the man whose horse your hostler was attending to when the coach arrived. Where is he?"
"My Got! murterer!" screamed the landlord. "You ton't say that, matam? Oh, the peast! He must pe caught, of course. Put he took fery coot care not to come to me, tear laty. He went somewhere into the town, and sent his nak here to pait. I'll keep a coot lookout for him, I promise him, the sneaking scoundrel!"
Muttering vituperations, he backed out of the room, and sent a woman to attend the lady, and a great, hulking pot-boy to guard her door.
"Now, what am I to think?" mused Margaret, who had thrown herself upon a sofa, and was feverishly watching the Welshwoman setting the table for her dinner. "How am I to follow out the intricacies of that wretch's plot? It is clear that he has amply provided against my escaping from him. True enough, he is too clever to leave any door open for his victim. I fondly thought that I had taken him by surprise when I escaped the castle and threw myself on Emersham's protection; but he meets me on the flight, and turns my purpose into another channel. I leave him foiled at the castle; I fly to the executors; he has foreseen the move, and meets me with the news of their disappearance. I turn to Mr. Emersham for help. He has foreseen that, also, and meets me with a forged letter, which turns my wishes all toward taking this journey. For a moment he is taken back when he receives my letter, showing him the precautions I have taken to expose him, and allows me to go on the journey which he has already provided for, only because he has not time to prevent me. But he telegraphs to his accomplice that I must not be murdered yet, and his accomplice spares me. Instead of finishing his work, he gets out at the next station, and probably telegraphs something to his principal, and waits for a new order. That he received it, is evident from his continuing his pursuit and haunting my steps as he has done. Now why was I not murdered, according to their agreement? For what was I reserved? And what was that fresh command which the accomplice received per telegraph from Mortlake?"