"Geoffrey," said Featherstone, in a bantering whisper, "behold our deadly enemy. Do you dare to speak to him?"
"I should rather not," answered Geoffrey, "but I suppose we must. Heavens! How pale his daughter is!"
"Come, Ripon. Mr. Lincoln sees us. Here goes to shake hands with the man whom we must send to prison to-morrow—if he don't send us."
Geoffrey Ripon felt more like a truant schoolboy approaching a severe master than he cared to confess even to himself, as he moved through the crowded room toward Richard Lincoln. But when they met there was nothing in the manner of either to indicate any unusual feeling.
Mary Lincoln stood near a window, from which she looked over the still silent but now dense crowd in the square. While she mentally contrasted the two scenes, that within with that without, she turned her head with the consciousness of being observed, and met the quiet eyes of Sir John Dacre, who bowed without a smile.
Mary's strong impulse was to warn him of his danger, at any cost to herself, and she had taken a step toward him, when she was intercepted by Mrs. Oswald Carey. The Beauty was splendidly dressed, and a deep excitement blazed in her eyes.
"We have kept places for you, Miss Windsor and I," said she, with gay kindliness. "Is your father going to speak to-night?"
"I think not," answered Mary, her old aversion for Mrs. Carey doubled on the instant.
"Then we shall take him too. Shall we go and find him?"
Dacre was still standing by the window, and Mary Lincoln, thinking to bring him to her, asked him if the meeting had opened.