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 here later and we can plan what's to be done next. We must move swiftly."

For some minutes after the door had closed Almayne sat motionless in the bed, frowning and chewing his moustache. Slowly the frown faded.

"By Zooks!" he muttered, swinging his long legs out of the bed, "the young cock partridge is in fine feather now! He's taken command, and Almayne's a private in the ranks."

Lachlan McDonald had not the honour to be included among the friends of Edward Stanwicke of Stanwicke Hall. Hitherto he had not counted this a misfortune. Old Stanwicke—Lord Stanwicke, as he was often called—was a power in the Prevince, a great landholder, the bearer of a title in that strange system of Colonial nobility established by the Lords Proprietors of Carolina and not yet wholly obsolete. Yet, because of his evil temper and his avarice, which were notorious in the Colony, few sought his favour or his company. Lachlan was not of those few, and now for the first time he half regretted it.

He wished to see Jolie Stanwicke, to talk with her at some length, to tell her of what he had learned and of what he now planned to do in the matter of Gilbert Barradell. Because he wished to see her alone, he had declined Almayne's offer to accompany him to Stanwicke's town house. He was turning over in his mind the problem of how to gain entrance there when something plucked lightly at his sleeve.