"Well," she said, in a low voice of confidence, "it was early one morning, after the last court ball, and he had driven home with us.

Afterwards my father had taken him to the study, and I had said good-night, when, on going to my room half an hour later, I found my maid very unwell. Therefore I went down again, intending to get from the study the key of the medicine cupboard, when I heard voices within, and naturally stopped to listen. I heard my father say distinctly, `I won't. I'll never be a party to such a piece of audacious robbery--why, it's treason--treason, do you hear? No, Angelo, not even you can induce me to betray my country!' Then in reply I heard the general say, `Very well. I have told you the course I intend to adopt. Your refusal places me in a critical situation, and I shall therefore save myself.'

`At my expense?' asked my father in a low, hoa.r.s.e voice. `Yes,' the man replied. `I shall certainly not fall without an effort to retain my place, my liberty, depend upon it. And when the truth is out regarding the Sazarac affair, this high moral standard that you are now adopting will avail you but little.' Then there was a silence. At last my father asked in a tone of reproach, `You actually intend to betray me, Angelo?--you, who owe your rank, your position, everything to me! Tell me, you are surely joking?' `No,' replied the fellow, `I am in earnest.

You must act as I have suggested, or take the consequences'?"

"You are certain--quite certain--that Borselli mentioned the Sazarac affair?" asked the Frenchman, in deep earnestness and surprise. "I mean that you distinctly heard the name of Sazarac mentioned?"

"Distinctly. Why?"

But the Frenchman made no reply. How could he tell her? What she had related revealed to him a strange and startling truth--a truth which held him amazed, aghast.

CHAPTER FOUR.

CONTAINS A MYSTERY.

In the rector's cosy little study at Thornby, George Macbean sat that same evening smoking his pipe, perplexed and puzzled.

In the zone of light shed by the green-shaded reading-lamp the rector, a stout, good-humoured, round-faced man of forty, sat writing a letter, while his nephew, lounging back in the old leather arm-chair before the fireplace, drew heavy whiffs at his pipe, with his eyes fixed straight upon the well-filled bookcase before him.

That day he had become a changed man.

From the first moment he had bowed to Mary Morini, when his uncle had introduced him at Orton, he had been struck by her marvellous grace and beauty, and this admiration had daily increased until now he was compelled to acknowledge within himself that he was deeply in love with her.

He smiled bitterly as the truth made itself manifest. He had been over head and ears in love with half a dozen women in his time, but he had always in a few weeks discovered their defects, their ambitions, and their lack of womanliness, without which a woman is no woman. He supposed it would be the same again, for he was not a man who wore his heart upon his sleeve.

And yet he had discovered that a mystery surrounded her--a mystery that attracted him.

The dead quiet of the night was unbroken save for the scratching of the rector's pen, for the village of Thornby, like all agricultural villages, goes to bed early and rises with the dawn. The solemn bell in the old church-tower struck ten as Mr Sinclair scribbled the superscription, blotted it, and rose from the table to fill his own pipe.

"Why, George, my boy, you're glum to-night. What's the matter?"

"I really didn't know I was," laughed his nephew. "I was only thinking.

And I didn't want to disturb you."

"Nothing disturbs me--except babies in church," declared the big fellow, laughing deeply. He was a good type of the easy-going bachelor parson in the enjoyment of a comfortable living and popularity in local society. He was fond of golf and cricket, was a good judge of a horse, a good shot, and frequently rode to hounds.

He filled his well-coloured briar carefully, lit it, and then casting himself into the chair opposite his nephew, said with a laugh--

"I noticed you were very chummy with Mary Morini. Well, what do you think of her?"

"Very charming," responded the young man, rather annoyed at his uncle's chaff.

"All the men about here rave over her beauty--and they have cause to, no doubt. She's a very entertaining companion and possesses a keen sense of humour--one of those girls who attract a man without being aware of it. That's the chief essential in a woman's grace."

"But who are these Morinis?" inquired Macbean, removing his pipe from his mouth. "n.o.body seems to know exactly who or what they are."

"You're quite right," responded his uncle, in a rather changed tone.

"Quite between ourselves, I've heard that question asked a good many times. Morini himself seems a bit of a recluse, for he seldom goes anywhere. Indeed, I haven't spoken to him more than half a dozen times in my life. But Madame Morini and her daughter are taken up by the local people because of their apparent affluence and because they rent Orton from Lady Straker."

"What kind of man is this Morini?" asked Macbean, in an idle tone.

"Oh, rather gentlemanly, with a lot of elegant pose. Speaks English very well for a foreigner, and smokes a very excellent brand of cigar.

But, if the truth were told, he's looked upon here with a good deal of suspicion. Ill-natured people say that he's a foreign adventurer who comes here in hiding from the police," he added, laughing.

The young man blew a long cloud of smoke from his lips, and remained silent. He was trying to recall a face he had seen--the face of a man, evidently a foreigner, who had pa.s.sed them in a dogcart as they were on the road home from Orton. The man's features had puzzled him ever since. They were familiar, yet he could not recollect in what circ.u.mstances they had met before.

In his position as secretary to the Member for South-West Norfolk he met many men, yet somehow he held a distinct idea that in the misty past this man had created upon him some impression of evil.

"You recollect," he exclaimed at last, "that just before we came to the cross-roads to Calthorpe we pa.s.sed a dogcart coming out from Rugby, with a groom in dark green livery."

"Yes. It was Morini's cart. The man in it is a guest at Orton," was the rector's reply. "More than that," he added, "he's said to be engaged--or about to be engaged--to the girl you admire so much."

"Oh, that's interesting!" remarked Macbean. "Do you know the man's name?"

"He's a young French count named Dubard. I've met him here several times; he seems quite a decent fellow for a Frenchman."

"Dubard? Dubard?" repeated the young man aloud, starting forward as though a sudden revelation had flashed upon him. "Surely he can't be Jules Dubard, the--"

"The what?" asked the rector quickly.

His nephew hesitated, recognising how he had narrowly betrayed the secret of that recognition. Then he added quite coolly--

"The Frenchman."

Basil Sinclair, disappointed at this clever evasion, looked his nephew straight in the face, and from the pallor of his cheeks saw that whatever recollections had been conjured up by mention of that name they were evidently the reverse of pleasing.

"His name is certainly Jules, and he is a Frenchman," he said gravely.

"But you know something about him. I see it in your face."

The young man smiled, and lolling back again in the big easy-chair, answered with admirable coolness, considering the bewildering truth that had at that moment flashed upon him--

"I am only surprised that Miss Morini should become engaged to a Frenchman. She told me to-day that her greatest regret is that they cannot live in England always."

"Ah, my boy, she's a thorough-going cosmopolitan," replied the rector, his pipe still between his teeth. "Such women always marry foreigners.

I daresay her father would object if she wanted to marry an Englishman.

He's a man who evidently means his daughter to marry a t.i.tle."

"In Italy it is rather a claim to distinction not to possess a t.i.tle,"

laughed his nephew, recollecting how many penniless counts and marquises he had come across during those happy years when he lived with his Uncle Pietro in the white, half-deserted old city of Pisa.

"Morini is Italian to the backbone, with all the Italian's admiration for England and yet with all the Italian's prejudices. You'll say so when you know him."

"But this count?" exclaimed Macbean. "Tell me what you know about him."

"You know more than I do, my dear George," declared Sinclair, with a sly smile, "only you don't choose to tell me. You hold an opinion that he is not a fit and proper person to become the husband of Morini's daughter. Admit it."

"I don't yet know who Morini really is," responded his nephew, with a clever diplomacy. "You have not yet told me the general impression in the neighbourhood regarding the family."

"As I have already said, they're looked upon with distinct suspicion."