in acknowledgment of a debt of a quarter of a million, she took it
only as an additional sign--for additional proof there was no
room--of their ever admirable devotion to his divine right. That the
marquis and his son were catholics served but to glorify the right
to which a hostile faith yielded such practical homage.

Immediately after nightfall she repaired to Caspar, and between them
everything was speedily arranged for the carrying out of lord
Herbert's counter-plot.

But night after night passed, and the bell in the marquis's room
remained voiceless.






CHAPTER XX.

MOLLY AND THE WHITE HORSE.





Meantime lord Herbert came and went. There was fighting here and
fighting there, castles taken, defended, re-taken, here a little
success and there a worse loss, now on this side and now on that;
but still, to say the best, the king's affairs made little progress;