"I have just received bad news--news which I have all along dreaded,"

replied the unhappy man, the telegram still in his hand. "Paul Le Pontois has been arrested on some mysterious charge--false, without a doubt!"

"Yes," replied Weirmarsh; "it is most unfortunate. I heard it an hour ago, and the real reason of my visit was to tell you of the _contretemps_."

"Someone must have made a false charge against him," cried the general excitedly. "The poor fellow is innocent--entirely innocent! I only have a brief telegram from his wife. She is in despair, and leaves for London to-night."

"My dear Sir Hugh, France is in a very hysterical mood just now. Of course, there must be some mistake. Some private enemy of his has made the charge without a doubt--someone jealous of his position, perhaps.

Allegations are easily made, though not so easily substantiated."

"Except by manufactured evidence and forged doc.u.ments," snapped Sir Hugh.

"If Paul is the victim of some political party and is to be made a scapegoat, then Heaven help him, poor fellow. They will never allow him to prove his innocence, unless----"

"Unless what?"

"Unless I come forward," he said very slowly, staring straight before him. "Unless I come forward and tell the truth of my dealings with you.

The charges against Paul are false. I know it now. What have you to say?"

he added in a low, hard voice.

"A great deal of good that would do!" laughed Weirmarsh, selecting a cigarette from his gold case and lighting it, regarding his host with those narrow-set, sinister eyes of his. "It would only implicate Le Pontois further. They would say, and with truth, that you knew of the whole conspiracy and had profited by it."

"I should tell them what I know concerning you. Indeed, I wrote out a full statement while I was staying with Paul. And I have it ready to hand for the authorities."

"You can do so, of course, if you choose," was the careless reply. "It really doesn't matter to me what statement you make. You have always preserved silence up to the present, therefore I should believe that in this case silence was still golden."

"And you suggest that I stand calmly by and see Le Pontois sentenced to a long term of imprisonment for a crime which he has not committed, eh?"

"I don't suggest anything, my dear Sir Hugh," was the man's reply; "I leave it all to your good judgment."

Since they had met in secret Weirmarsh had made a flying visit to Brussels, where he had conferred with two friends of his. Upon their suggestion he was now acting.

If Paul Le Pontois were secretly denounced and afterwards found innocent, then it would only mystify the French police; the policy pursued towards the Surete, as well as towards Sir Hugh, was a clever move on Weirmarsh's part.

"What am I to say to my poor girl when she arrives here in tears to-morrow?" demanded the fine old British officer hoa.r.s.ely.

"You know that best yourself," was Weirmarsh's brusque reply.

"To you I owe all my recent troubles," the elder man declared.

"Because--because," he added bitterly, "you bought me up body and soul."

"A mere business arrangement, wasn't it, Sir Hugh?" remarked his visitor.

"Of course, I'm very sorry if any great trouble has fallen upon you on my account. I hope, for instance, you do not suspect me of conspiring to denounce your son-in-law," he added.

"Well, I don't know," was the other's reply; "yet I feel that, in view of this _contretemps_, I must in future break off all connection with you."

"And lose the annual grant which you find so extremely useful?"

"I shall be compelled to do without it. And, at least, I shall have peace of mind."

"Perhaps," remarked the other meaningly.

Sir Hugh realised that this man intended still to hold him in the hollow of his hand. From that one false step he had taken years ago he had never been able to draw back.

Hour by hour, and day by day, had his conscience p.r.i.c.ked him. Those chats with the doctor in that grimy little consulting-room in Pimlico remained ever in his memory.

The doctor was the representative of those who held him in their power--persons who were being continually hunted by the police, yet who always evaded them--criminals all! To insult him would be to insult those who had paid him so well for his confidential services.

Yet, filled with contempt for himself, he asked whether he did not deserve to be degraded publicly, and drummed out of the army.

Were it not for Lady Elcombe and Enid he would long ago have gone to East Africa and effaced himself. But he could not bring himself to desert them.

He had satisfied himself that not a soul in England suspected the truth, for, by the Press, he had long ago been declared to be a patriotic Briton, because in his stirring public speeches, when he had put up for Parliament after the armistice, there was always a genuine "John Bull"

ring.

The truth was that he remained unsuspected by all--save by one man who had scented the truth. That man was Walter Fetherston!

Walter alone knew the ghastly circ.u.mstances, and it was he who had been working to save the old soldier from himself. He did so for two reasons--first, because he was fond of the bluff, fearless old fellow, and, secondly, because he had been attracted by Enid, and intended to rescue her from the evil thraldom of Weirmarsh.

"Why have you returned here to taunt and irritate me again?" snapped Sir Hugh after a pause.

"I came to tell you news which, apparently, you have already received."

"You could well have kept it. You knew that I should be informed in due course."

"Yes--but I--well, I thought you might grow apprehensive perhaps."

"In what direction?"

"That your connection with the little affair might be discovered by the French police. Bezard, the new chief of the Surete, is a pretty shrewd person, remember!"

"But, surely, that is not possible, is it?" gasped the elder man in quick alarm.

"No; you can rea.s.sure yourself on that point. Le Pontois knows nothing, therefore he can make no statement--unless, of course, your own actions were suspicious."

"They were not--I am convinced of that."

"Then you have no need to fear. Your son-in-law will certainly not endeavour to implicate you. And if he did, he would not be believed,"

declared the doctor, although he well knew that Bezard was in possession of full knowledge of the whole truth, and that, only by the timely warning he had so mysteriously received, had this man before him and his stepdaughter escaped arrest.

His dastardly plot to secure their ruin and imprisonment had failed. How the girl had obtained wind of it utterly mystified him. It was really in order to discover the reason of their sudden flight that he had made those two visits.

"Look here, Weirmarsh," exclaimed Sir Hugh with sudden resolution, "I wish you to understand that from to-day, once and for all, I desire to have no further dealings with you. It was, as you have said, a purely business transaction. Well, I have done the dirty, disgraceful work for which you have paid me, and now my task is at an end."

"I hardly think it is, my dear Sir Hugh," replied the doctor calmly. "As I have said before, I am only the mouthpiece--I am not the employer. But I believe that certain further a.s.sistance is required--information which you promised long ago, but failed to procure."

"What was that?"

"You recollect that you promised to obtain something--a little t.i.ttle-tattle--concerning a lady."

"Yes," snapped the old officer, "oh, Lady Wansford. Let us talk of something else!"