"If it is known," she said, with forced calmness, "surely it will be stopped without bloodshed? They will arrest those gentlemen before they go too far."
Had her father looked into the eyes that spoke more than the lips he might have read beyond the words. But his mind was preoccupied.
"Bloodshed might be avoided by their arrest," he said, sadly; "but the evil would only be postponed, not eradicated. The conspirators have entered the rapids: they will be allowed to go over the falls."
"Oh, father!" whispered Mary, standing beside him and holding his arm, "can they not be warned?"
Richard Lincoln, startled from his own brooding by this astounding question from his daughter, turned, almost sternly, to speak of the righteous doom of traitors, but he did not say the words. At last he saw what a less observant eye might have seen long before—the suffering and fear in her eyes, and the lines which concealed anxiety had drawn on his daughter's face. Without a word she came into his arms and lay upon his breast and sobbed, and no word was needed that was not spoken in the father's gentle hand on her dear head.
The hours of the afternoon went slowly by, and Richard Lincoln was glad to look forward to an unusual evening as the best means of diverting Mary's mind from the subject which filled it. At seven o'clock a great public meeting was to be held in Cobden Square. The platform for the speakers happened to be built beneath the windows of Mr. Windsor's city house, and the hospitable American, who was to depart next morning for his own country, had invited a large party to hear the speeches.
Mary was glad when her father told her that he wished her to go with him, for Maggie Windsor was the only one who knew her secret. As she drove with her father into the square in the evening, the place was bright as mid-day with electric lights. The crowd was already gathering, and the people were strangely silent.
At Mr. Windsor's there was a large party, and among the guests many of those whom Mary had met at Ripon House.
It was almost a merry gathering. The genial American gentleman and his charming daughter had conquered even the austerity of the Duchess of Bayswater; and the Duke conversed with Mr. Sydney, swaying his gold eyeglass on its string with gracious abandon.
Geoffrey Ripon and Featherstone, who were together, saw Mr. Lincoln and Mary as soon as they entered.